^  IB  R  IS 


WILFRED  HAROLD  MUNRO 


THE 

SECRET  HISTORY 


0  X.    T  H  F 


COURT  AND  CABINET 


OF 


ST.  CLOUD. 


IN  A  SERIES  OF  LETTERS 

/  •'  • 

-*«OM  A  7?.;-:  ,.ID£NT  IN  PARIS  TO  A  NOBLEMAN  IN  LONDON,  WRITTEN 
U'.-^llxG  THE  MONTHS  O  F  .  A 'C<frTST,  SEPTEMBER 


A  *  D 

.-• 

•'•n*' 

FOURTH  AMERICAN  |LJ 

With  considerable  and  Lutereq'ting:;  .A^Mtici 


NEW-YORK ; 

^ED  FOR  ANC   PUBLISHED  BY  BRISBAW  AND  El 
NO.   T,  CITY-HOTEL,  BROADWAY 

.1807 


District  of")  "J3E  IT  REMEMBERED,  That  on  the  thirteenth 
New- York,  5  **'  -D  day  of  February,  in  the  thirty-first  year  of  the  In- 
dependence of  the  United  States  of  America,  BRISBAN  &*~BRANNAN,  of 
Viie  said  District,  have  deposited  in  this  Office,  the  Title  of  a  Book, 
'he  right  whereof  they  claim  as  proprietors,  in  the  words  and  figures  fol- 
lowing, to  wit : 

"  The  Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud  ;  in 
'•'  a  series  of  Letters  from  a  Resident  in  Paris  to  a  Nobleman  in  Lon- 
"  don,  written  during  the  months  of  August,  September  and  Octo- 
"  ber,  1805.  Fourth  American  Edition, with  considerable  and  interest- 
"  ing  Additions." 


IN  CONFORMITY  to  the  Act  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States* 

entitled,  "  An  Act  for  the  encouragement  of  Learning,  by  securing  the 

Copies  of  M*fte,  Charts,  and  Books,  to  the  Authors  and  Proprietors 

of  such  Copies,  during  the  times  therein  mentioned ;"  and  also  to  an 

Act,  entitled,  '*  An  Act  supplementary  to  an  Act,  entitled,  An  Act  fop 

'  the  encouragement  of  Learning,  by  securing  the  copies  of  Maps, 

'  Charts,  and  Books,  to  the  Authors  and  Proprietors  of  such  Copies, 

'  during  the  times  therein  mentioned,  and  extending  the  benefits  there- 

'  of,  to  the  Arts  of  Designing,  Engraving,  and  Etching  historical  and 

•*  other  prints." 

\       EDWARD  DUNSCOMB, 
Clerk  of  the  District  of  New- York. 


CONTENTS. 


. 

Buonaparte's  political  character  contrasted  with  his  military  education 
and  life  :  governed  by  courtiers  and  favourites  :  General  Duroc  : 
his  character  :  the  causes  of  his  advancement  :  his  military  exploits 
in  Italy  and  Egypt,  and  political  missions  to  Berlin,  and  St.  Peters- 
burgh  :  visits  to  Madame  Bonocil,  a  female  intriguer  :  his  blunder  in 

consequence  :  the  Polish  Count  S tz  :  his  character  :  dupes  Duroc  : 

Duroc' s  j^irriage. 

LETTER  II. 

Joseph  Buonaparte  :  his  character  as  a  negotiator  :  the  puppet  of  Tal- 
leyrand :  Talleyrand's  intrigues,  and  motives  for  employing  the 
brothers  of  Buonaparte  :  Lucien's  embassy  to  Spain  :  Joseph's  ra- 
pacity, connection  with  an  army  contractor,  and  stUfek-jobbing  :  se- 
cret articles  of  the  treaty  of  Luneville  :  Buonaparte's  offence  at 
them :  reproaches  Talleyrand  :  departure  of  Lord  Whit  worth'  in 
1803  :  Buonaparte's  rage  and  speech  to  Talleyrand  on  the  occasion, 
and  violent  conduct  towards  his  mother,  wife,  &c. 

LETTER  III. 

Debates  on  the  religious  concordat  :  opposed  by  different  factions  ; 
Buonaparte's  mother,  how  far  instrumental  in  procuring  the  restora- 
tion of  religious  worship.  Cardinal  Gonsalvi  and  Bishop  Bernier  : 
their  intrigues  and  characters.  Madame  Buonaparte's  astonishment 
on  being  ordered  to  attend  mass,  &c.  :  her  hypocrisy:  watched  by 
spies  :  her  mode  of  passing  her  time  at  chapel  discovered  :  regula- 
tions in  consequence  :  conversation  at  Viscount  de  Segur's,  on 
the  religious  principles  of  the  French  :  imprudent  remark  of  a  young- 
officer  the  cause  of  his  transportation  to  Cayenne. 

LETTER  IV. 

The  assumption  of  the  Imperial  dignity,  long  determined  on  by  Buona- 
parte :  delayed  by  the  rupture  with  England  :  his  good  fortune  mis 
taken  for  political  foresig'ht :  the  disgrace  of  Moreau,  the  murder 
of  the  Duke  d'Enghien/Pichegru,  and  Georges,  and  the  treache- 
ry towards  Mr.  Drake,  not  necessary  steps  to  his  elevation :  Mo- 
reau not  dangerous  as  a  rival  to  Buonaparte  :  why  not  assassinated  . 
honorable  conduct  of  Pichegru,  the  day  before  his  death  :  Murat 
the  executioner  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien. 

LETTER  V, 

The  characters  of  the  principal  emigrants  well  known  to  the  French 
government :  Meh.ee  de  la  Touche  :  his  perfidy  and  ingratitude  :  his 
mission  and  intrigues  in  England  :  refused  the  wages  of  his  infamy 
by  Talleyrand  ;  Heal,  a  forgery  committed  by  him  in  1788  :  strange 


i*r  CONTENTS. 

mixture  of  society  at  his  house  :  Madame  de  Soubray  ;  her  severe 
reproof  of  Mehee  de  la  Touche. 

LETTER  VI. 

Unhappiness  of  Madame  Napoleone  on  the  day  of  her  coronation  :  dis- 
cipline of  the  Court  of  St.  Cloud  entirely  military  :  formation  of 
the  household  entrusted  to  Madame  Napoleone  :  consequent  em- 
barrassment :  extricated  by  an  expedient  proposed  by  De  Segur  : 
Madame  Napoleone  confined  :  released  at  the  intercession  of  her 
daughter. 

LETTER  VII. 

Religious  discussion  tolerated  :  why  :  remonstrance  of  Cardinal  Ca- 
praraonthe  subject  :.  two  authors  transported  to  Cayenne  :  Pigault 
Le  Brun  owes  his  escape  t»  Madame  Murat :  Cardinal  Caprara's 
influence  over  Buonaparte  :  defeats  a  cabal  formed  against  him,  and 
turns  it  to  his  advantage  :  employed  by  the  Pope  in  his  secret  nego- 
tiations at  Paris  :  teazes  Buonaparte,  and  is  confined  by  him,  but 
obtains  his  object  :  trick  attempted  to  be  played  upon  him,  ends  un- 
fortunately for  the  contrivers. 

LETTER  VIII. 

Grave  dress  and  puritanical  demeanour  of  the  company  at  Madame 
Napoleone's  last  levee  previous  to  meeting  the  Pope:  Buonaparte 
surrounded  by  Cardinals  and  Priests  :  remark  of  General  Keller- 
man,  occasions  his  disgrace  :  conduct  of  the  company  on  quitting 
the  levee  :  Princess  Borghese's  idea  respecting  a  parrot  and  an  al- 
moner, monkeys  and  chaplains. 

LETTER  IX. 

The  reception  of  Buonaparte  as  Emperor  by  the  army  of  England,  not 
flatte  ring  :  ascribed  by  him  to  the  adherents  of  Pichegrti  and  Mo- 
reau  :  his  conduct  inconsequence  :  orders  a  grenadier  to  be  shot, 
and  disbands  a  regiment.  Effect  produced  on  the  military  by  the 
distribution  of  the  ribands,  Sec.  of  the  Legion  of  Honour:  the 
French  ports  declared  to  be  in  a  state  of  blockade  by  the  English  : 
Buonaparte's  rage  and  agitation  :  fires  at  some  British  cruizers  » 
breaks  six  officers  of  artillery,  and  assaults  another  :  quits  the  camp 
in  disgust. 

LETTER  X. 

Count  Cobentzel  advises  his  soTereign  to  assume  the  title  of  Emperor 
of  Austria  :  his  political  employments  and  character:  his  passion 
for  women  :  Talleyrand's  opinion  of  him  :  invited  by  Buonaparte  to 
visit  the  camps  of  the  army  of  England  :  Talleyrand's  notej  proscrib- 
ing all  British  agents  and  ambassadors  :  Buonaparte's  arrival  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  :  is  met  there  by  the  fureig-n  ambassadors  :  presented 
with  the  relics  of  Charlemagne,  and  punishes  a  German  professor 
for  proving  them  forgeries. 

LETTER  XI. 

Buonaparte  finds  his  wife  involved  in  gambling  debts,  and  surrounded 
by  Jews  and  other  creditors  :  Talleyrand's  mode  of  settling  their 
demands  :  Count  de  Segur  completes  Buonaparte's  household  estab- 
lishment :  his  character,  and  public  employments  :  his  domestic 
misfortunes  :  character  ef  the  members  of  Buonaparte's  civil  list  : 
methods  adopted  to  augment  it  with  Prussian  and  German  noble.s  .- 


CONTENTS,  v 

LETTER  XII. 

Buonaparte's  intention  to  seize  on  the  empire  of  Germany :  his  secret 
treaties  with  the  petty  German  Princes  at  Mentz  :  the  French  revo- 
lution not  looked  on  as  dangerous  in  Germany  :  why  :  the  Elector 
of  Bavaria  :  his  character  and  obligations  to  Louis  XVI :  governed  by 
Montgelas,  the  idol  of  illuminati,  and  patron  of  atheists  :  the  pro- 
gress of  illumination  in  Bavaria  :  Montgelas  concerned  in  the  plot 
against  Mr.  Drake  :  his  character. 

LETTER  XIII. 

Attendance  of  German  Princes  and  Priircesses  on  the  Empress  Josephine 
at  Mentz,  and  rich  presents  to  her  :  bribery  and  corruption  openly 
practised  there  :  disappointment  of  the  German  Princes  :  high 
price  demanded  by  Talleyrand  for  indemnities  :  his  intrigue  with 

the  Countess  de  L and  the  Baroness  de  S z  :  repulsed  by  the 

Princess  of  H Buonaparte's  jealousy  :  mistakes   the  object  of 

Count  de  L ge's  attention  to  the  Empress  Josephine  :  his  proceed  - 

ings  inconsequence  :  the  avarice  of  the  Empress. 

LETTER  XIV. 

Former  intimacy  of  the  writer  with  Madame  Napoleone  and  liei? 
daughter  :  their  friendly  behaviour  on  his  first  introduction  to  them 
since  their  elevation  :  subsequent  change  :  the  writer  declines  the 
offer  of  a  public  situation  :  arrested  :  interview  with  General  Mu- 
rat :  sentenced  to  be  transported  to  Cayenne  OP.  the  report  of 
Fouche,  but  protected  by  Princess  Louis  :  cause  of  Fouche's  enmity  : 
his  infamous  character,  and  unbounded  authority  :  the  oubliettes, 
liis  invention  :  his  immense  property  :  Buonaparte's  reasons  for  em- 
ploying him. 

LETTER  XV. 

The  poverty  and  dependent  situation  of  the  foreign  ambassadors  a' 
Paris  :  invited  by  Talleyrand  to  a  diplomatic  dinner  :  his  manoeuvre 
to  obtain  their  declarations  respecting  the  pretended  correspondence 
of  Mr.  Drake  :  servility  of  the  Danish  and  American  ambassadors  ; 
their  characters  :  Baron  de  Dreyer's  reasons  for  wishing  to  main- 
tain his  situation.  Count  de  Haugwitz  :  his. birth,  political  life, 
and  character.  ,- 

LETTER  XVI. 

The  writer  accepts  an  invitation  from  Princess  Louis  Buonaparte  to 
dinner  :  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion :  different  opinions  respecting  the  proper  mode  of  treating  the 
inhabitants  when  vanquished  :  imprudent  observations  of  Marquis 

de  F :  exiled  to  Blois  in  consequence,  and  saved  from  severer 

punishment  only  by  the  interference  of  Princess  Louis :  her  good-na- 
ture :  character  of  Louis. 

LETTER  XVII. 

Violent  debates  in  the  sacred  College,  on  the  journey  of  the  Pope  to 
France  :  the  members  bribed  by  Cardinal  Fesch  :  birth  of  Cardinal 
Fesch  :  his  life  and  adventures  :  his  marriage,  and  desertion  of  bis 
wife:  her  application  to  the  Pope:  his  libertinism  at  Lyons:  hr 
wealth,  dignities,  and  expectations. 

LETTER  XVIII. 

The  Margrave  of  Baden  made  an  Elector  by  the  intrigues   of  Taller 
rand  and  Baron  Edelskeim  :    character  and  political  life  of 


vi  CONTENTS. 

sheim  :  haughty  and  indecent  conduct  of  Buonaparte  to  the  Elector 
at  Mentz  :  secret  treaty  signed  there  :   the   vanity  and  affected  con-    . 
sequence  of  Edelsheim  played  on  and  exposed  by  Talleyrand  :   his 
fondness  for  orders  of  knighthood  :  fawns  on  Buo'naparte,  to  obtain 
admission  into  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

LETTER  XIX. 

The  journey  of  the  Pope  to  France  unfavourable  to  the  cause  of  reli- 
gion :  the  restoration  of  Christianity  the  most  popular  act  of  Buona- 
parte's government  :  the  opinion  of  the  people  respecting  the  act  of 
inauguration  by  the  Pope  :  their  faith  in  his  infallibility  shaken  :. 
manners  and  character  of  the  Pope  :  promises  made  to  him  by  Buo- 
naparte not  performed  :  refuses  to  admit.  De  Lalande  to  see  him  • 
De  Lalande's  atheism  :  enmity  between  him  and  Talleyrand.  The 
Pope's  aversion  to  Fouche  :  Fouche's  impious  conduct  at  Lyons. 

LETTER  XX. 

Buonaparte's  mother  the  favourite  of  the  Pope  :  family  parties  invited 
to  meet  him  :  ceremony  observed  on  such  occasions  :  superstition 
of  Madame  Lsetitia  Buonaparte:  her  fondness  for  relics  :  buys  the 
shoulder-bone  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  :  robbed  of  her  relics  :  Fouche 
npplied  to  :  who  discovers  pieces  of  them  all  in  the  possession  of  a 
favourite  servant  :  the  rest  found  on-  Madame  Genlis,  who  had 
bought  them  of  a  priest  :  the  priest  arrested  :  claims  the  protection 
of  Madame  Ljctitia :  threatened  with  the  rack,  and  confesses  his 
imposture. 

LETTER  XXL 

Decrease  in  the  population  of  Paris  not  to  be  lamented  :  the  crimes 
committed  there  not  suffered  to  be  published:  the  system  of  espio- 
nage :  immense  number  of-  spies  :  how  paid :  Buonaparte's  private 
spies  under  the  direction  of  Duroc :  dispute  between  Fouche  and' 
Talleyrand :  Ducroux  employed  as  a  spy  by  Buonaparte  and  Fouche 
on  each  other  :  his  blunder  and  execution. 
LETTER  XXII. 

The  Pope's  manner  of  passing  his  time  at  Paris  :  great  stress  laid  ou* 
his  performing  the  ceremony  of  inauguration,  and  sacrifices  intended 
to  have  been  made,  had  he  refused :  all  promises  to  him  disregarded  : 
his   blind  partiality  for  Buonaparte  :    Caprara  dissuades  Buonaparte 
from  being  crowned  by  the  pope  as  King  of  Italy. 

"  LETTER  XXIII. 

King  and  Queen  of  Naples  :  their  firm  and  dignified  conduct :  Cheva- 
lier Acton  :  his  birth  :  political  character  :  enemy  of  the  French  Re- 
volution :  neutrality  of  Naples  violated:  the  removal  of  Acton  in- 
sisted on  by  the  French  government:  Marquis  de  Gallo  :  his  public 
employments  :  a  favourite  with  Buonaparte  :  suspected  of  being 
tainted  with  modern  philosophy:  the  Neapolitan  revolution  in  1799 
,  i'avoured  by  the  Nobles:  character  of  the  Marquis  de  Gallo. 

LETTER  XXIV. 

Buonaparte  and  all  his  family  married  by  the  Pope  :  his  courtiers  and 
grand  functionaries  by  the  Cardinals  :  their  regular  attendance  at 
mass  and  vespers  :  trick  of  Salmatoristo  expose  their  hypocrisy  :  is 
punished :  Fouche's  visit  to  the  Imperial  chapel  :  his  discovery  there  : 
the  indifference  of  the  common  people  to  religious  worship  :  the  mi" 


vih 

hcury  compelled  to   atttend  mass  :  singular  occurrence   in  conse* 
quence,  and  injustice  of  Buonaparte. 

LETTER  XXV. 

Seizure  of  Sir  George  Rurnbold  :  intended  to  have  been  tortured  and 
put  to  death  :  why  not  :  Rheinhard  officially  disavows  the  outrage  : 
is  disgraced  in  consequence  .  his  political  life  and  character:  Bour- 
rienne  :  his  employment  under  Buonaparte  :  his  dispute  with  him  and 
imprisonment  :  released  and  pensioned  :  his  extortions  .and  stock- 
jobbing :  his  character. 

LETTER  XXVI. 

Joseph  Buonaparte's  retired  mode  of  life  at  Paris  :  his  hospitality  at 
Morfontaine  ;  amusements  there,  and  freedom  allowed  to  the  guests  ,. 
Montaigne,  a  young  poet,  ~a  visitor  there  :  his  drunkenness  :  writes 
a  poem  against  it :  Madame  Joseph's  gallantries  :  duel  between  her 
gallants  :  Eugenius  de  Bcauharnois  forbidden  the  house  of  Joseph : 
Madame  Miot  detected  by  her  husband  in  an  intrigue  with  Captain 
d'Horteuil  :  the  gallant  beats  Miot,  who  begs  pardon  :  Miot's  infa- 
mous life  and  character. 

LETTER  XXVII. 

Conduct  of  the  King  of  Spain  -.  his  weak  character  :  the  present  the 
age  of  upstarts  :  the  Prince  of  Peace  :  his  former  occupation  :  his 
want  of  talents  :  cause  of  his  advancement  :  his  intrigue  with  the 
Queen,  and  favour  with  the  King  :  weakness  and  ignorance  of  his 
administration  :  disgrace,  and  misfortunes  produced  by  it  :  Gravina 
his  character  and  ambition  :  his  military  exploits  :  intrigue  with  an 
opera  girl :  his  marriage -mania  involves  him  in  a  disagreeable  scrape, 
LETTER  XXVIII. 

Vicious  morals,  gross  manners,  and  open  corruption  of  the  Court  of  St. 
Cloud:  anecdotes:  Merlin  of  Douai :.  his  public  employments: 
infamous  character,  and  great  wealth. 

LETTER  XXIX. 

Immense  number  of  Buonaparte's  household  troops:  regularly  paid,  aird 
strictly  disciplined  :  tlieir  privileges,  Sec.  :  Military  reviews  :  their 
use  :  less  frequent  since  Buonaparte's  coronation  ;  number  of  mili- 
tary posted  in  and  near  Paris  :  Army  of  Invalrds  :  their  prejudices  : 
how  employed:  mode  of  enforcing  payment  of  taxes  at  Paris  : 
houses  of  the  invalids  :  their  read'ing-rooms,  libraries,  8cc.  :  their 
licentiousness  and  crimes  :  screened  from  punishment  by  the  orders- 
of  Buonaparte  :  Rabais,  a  horse  grenadier  :  his  amours  and  debau- 
cheries :  accused  before  Thuriot,  and  acquitted  :  his  intrigue  with 
Madame  Thuriot  :  discovered  by  her  jealousy  :  Thuriot  applies  in 
vain  for  redress  :  Rabais's  intrigue  with  Madame  Bachiocchi  :  de- 
nounced by  Thuriot :  arrest  and  punishment  of  Rabais  :  curious  ef- 
fects discovered  in  his  trunk  :  Thuriot's  rage  and  violence  in  conse- 
quence :  his  employment  ;md  crimes. 

LETTER  XXX. 

The  writer  visits  Liicien  Buonaparte  at  his  country  seat  :  Lucien's  va- 
luable collection  of  pictures  :  his  hospitality  and  engaging-  manners 
contrasted  with  those  of  Napoleone  and  Joseph  :  his  liberality  :  an- 
ecdotes :  his  republicanism  :  his  vices  compared  with  those  of  Na- 
poleone :  his  immense  wealth,  how  acquired  :  instance  of  his  gene 
rosity  and  perversity, 


viii  CONTENTS. 

LETTER  XXXI. 

Reasons  for  not  incorporating- the  Batavian  republic  with  the  French 
empire  :  partition  treaty  of  Holland  offered  by  France  to  Prussia  : 
why  declined:  Buonaparte  displeased  with  the  Batavian  govern- 
ment i  violates  its  neutrality  :  remonstrance  of  Count  Mai'koii,  how 
answered  by  Buonaparte  :  his  determination  to  change  the  form  of 
government  in  Holland  :  difficulty  of  finding  n't  magistrates  :  Hol- 
land not  lately  productive  of  great  men  :.  Admiral  de  Winter  :  his 
character :  political  connections  and  employments  :  Generals  Daen- 
dels  and  Dumonceau  :  their  lives  and  characters. 

LETTER  XXXII. 

Buonaparte  advises  Prussia  of  his  intention  to  change  the  form  of  go- 
vernment in  Holland  :  chief  magistrates  thought  of :  young  Prince 
of  Orange  :  Elector  of  Bavaria  :  Buonaparte's  increasing  displeasure 
with  the  Batavian  directory  :  intended  to  make  his  brother  Stadthol- 
der.  Sehimmelpenninck  :  his  education  :  want  of  talents  :  political 
connections  and  opinions  :  his  embassy  to  France  :  bribes  Talley- 
rand to  procure  him  the  appointment  of  Grand  Pensionary  :  his  cha- 
racter :  Madame  Sehimmelpenninck  :  her  talents^iind  amiable  man- 
ners :  Schirnmelpenninck's  female  friends  of  the  Palais  Royal. 
LETTER  XXXIII. 

Buonaparte's  cool  reception  at  Milan  :  ascribed  by  him  to  the  in- 
trigues of  England  and  Russia  :  measures  of  security  adopted  :  fre- 
quency of  conspiracies  in  France  since  ihe  revolution:  Buonaparte's 
reasons  for  concealing  them  :  plot  of  Charlotte  Encore  :  attempts  to 
stab  Buonaparte  :  prevented  by  Duroc :  expires  on  the  rack,  refusing 
»j  name  her  accomplices  :  their  plan  and  names  how  discovered. 
LETTER  XXXIV. 

All  women  forbidden  to  approach  Buonaparte  without  permission  :  a 
female  servant  of  Cardinal  Fesch,  whom  Buonaparte  had  seduced, 
attempts  to  poison  him  :  discovered  and  poisons  herself :  plot  to  as- 
sassinate him  at  Milan  :  his  agitation  on  the  discovery  :  speech  of  one 
of  the  conspirators,  who  stabs  himself:  the  others  torn  to  pieces  on 
fhe  rack  :  proceedings  in  consequence  or*  this  conspiracy.  Buona- 
parte an  object  of  ridicule  in  Italy  :  league  of  generals  against  him  : 
its  object  :  the  generals  disgraced. 

LETTER  XXXV. 

Vanity  and  Caprice  of  Buonaparte  :  his  rage,  on  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many's refusing  to  become  a  member  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  :  his 
threat,  and  violent  conduct  to  the  Austrian  ambassador  :  determines 
to  incorporate  the  Ligurian  republic  with  France  :  Salicetti,  the 
French  minister  at  Genoa  :  his  birth  :  employments  :  a  terrorist 
recommends  Buonaparte  to  Barras  :  displeases  him  by  his  familiari- 
ty :  Lucien  Buonaparte  intended  to  fyave  been  made  Sovereign  or 
the  Ligurian  republic  :  why  not  :  the  change  of  government  how  ef- 
fected :  the  Doge  and  Ligurian  Deputation  do  homage  to  Buona- 
parte as  sovereign  at  Milan  :  their  grief  and  indignation  :  The  PA- 
.TRIOTIC  ROBBERS  :  stop  Salicetti,  and  seize  his  papers  :  PATRI- 
OTIC AVENGERS. 

LETTER  XXXVI. 

Exchange  of  orders  of  knighthood  between  Buonaparte  and  sovereign 
princes  :  foreign  ambassadors  invited  to  his  coronation   at  Milan 


CONTENTS.  ix 

some  decline  to  attend  :  expenses  of  the  journey  to  Milan,  and  co- 
ronation :  General  Jo urd an  :  his  marriage,  and  military  appointments  : 
cause  of  his  enmity  to  Pichegru  :  his  military  and  political  ex- 
ploits :  his  quarrel  with  Massena  :  his  character. 

LETTER  XXXVII. 

Conservative  Senate,  its  heterogeneous  composition  :  character  of  its 
members  :  Senatorial  Commission  of  Personal  Liberty  :  its  mem 
hers  :  Lenoir  Laroche,  Boissy  d'Anglas,  Sers  :  their  lives  and  cha- 
racters :  Senatorial  Commission  of  the  Liberty  of  the  Press  :  Garat 
and  Roederer  its  principal  members  :  pedantry  and  inhumanity  of  Ga- 
cat  :  an  enemy  to  the  liberty  of  the  press  :  Roeder.er  unprincipled  and 
profligate  :  rejected  by  all  factions  r  employed  first  by  Buonaparte  : 
his  incest  :  his  wealth,  libertinism,  and  foppery. 

LETTER  XXXVIII. 

Turkish  empire  preserved  by  the  mutual  jealousies  of  Austria,  France, 
and  Russia  :  its  weakness  and  anarchy  :  political  intrigues  at  Con- 
stantinople :  the  neutrality  of  the  Porte  more  useful  than  its  alliance ; 
intrigue  of  the  Brissot  faction  in  1792,  to  engage  it  in  a  war  with  . 
Austria  counteracted  by  count  de  Choiseul  Gouffier,  then  French 
ambassador  there  :  De  Semonville  sent  on  an  embassy  thither,  in 
1793,  with  rich  presents  :  made  prisoner  by  the  Austrians  :  the  Sul- 
tan declares  war  against  France  :  peace  concluded  :  Sebastiani's 
mission  to  Egypt  and  Syria  :  General  Brune  appointed  ambassador 
to  the  Porte  :  his  character  :  his  vices:  political  intrigues  and  mili- 
tary employments. 

LETTKR  XXXIX. 

Brune's  numerous  suite  :  of  what  composed  :  real  object  of  his  mission 
avowed  by  Talleyrand  :  Markoff  remonstrates  :  Count  Italinski :  his 
character :  warns  the  Divan  against  Brune  :  libelled  by  him  in  the 
Moniteur  :  Brune's  reception  at  Constantinople  :  his  chagrin  :  de- 
mands his  recall,  upon  the  Porte's  refusal  to  acknowledge  Buonaparte 
as  emperor:  Joubert,  a  bearer  of  a  letter  from  Buonaparte  to  the 
Grand  Signior  :  his  education  and  employments  :  young  men  edu- 
cated at  the  expense  of  the  French  government  in  foreign  countries  : 
for  what  purpose  :  Joubert's  interview  with  the  Sultan  :  how  ob- 
tained :  its  result :  his  second  message,  and  failure  :  French  emissa- 
ries in  Austria,  Hungary,  and  Servia  :  French  Officers  in  the  service 
of  Czerni  George  and  Paswan  Oglou:  Brune  quits  Constantinople  : 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  army  of  observation  opposite  the 
English  coast  :  his  instructions  :  his  wealth,  ostentation,  and  vanity. 
LETTER  XL. 

Madame  de   C n  :  her  fashionable  parties  :  her  marriage  with 

count  de  C n  disputed  :  character  of  count  de  C n  :  his 

physiognomical  pursuits  :  trick  played  on  him  :  purchases  Madame 
de  C n  from  a  Circassian  merchant,  and  sends  her  to  be  edu- 
cated in  France  :  his  death. :  Madame  de  C— — — — n's  numerous  suit- 
ors and  gallants  :  her  pretended  brother  :  her  own  story  ;  birth  and 

splendid  christening  of  the  son  of  count  de  P 1  :  Villetard  :  his 

crimes  and  violence  :  his  sacrilege  and  infamous  conduct  at  Loretto: 
treachery  and  hypocrisy  :  Cardinal  de  Bellois  :  his  birth  :  govern- 
ed by  his  grand  vicars  :  Treilhard  steals  Madame  de  C n's 

gold  plates  :  his  political  life  :  Madame  Francois  de  Nantes  :  he? 
theft,  gambling1,  and  prostitution. 


X  CONTENTS. 

LETTER  XLI. 

Ill  temper  of  Buonaparte  on  his  return  from  Milan  :  from  what  arising-- 
his  violence  and  insolence  to  the  Prussian  and  Saxon  ambassadors  r 
restoration  of  ancient  etiquette  a  desirable  point  to  insist  on  from 
Buonaparte  :  his  conduct  to  the  army  of  England  :  Captain  Fournois 
stabs  himself  on  being  struck  by  him  :  his  proceedings  in  conse- 
quence :  discipline  and  spirit  of  the  French  troops  :  instance  of  he- 
roism in  a  private  soldier  :  General  Savary  :  his  character,  birth,  and 
employments. 

LETTER  XLII. 

The  Bank  of  France  ordered  by  Buonaparte  to  furnish  him  with  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  sterling  at  two  hours  notice  :  alarm  of  the  public  :  run 
upon  the  bank  :  notes  paid  in  copper  coin  :  the  people  grow  clamo- 
rous :  many  arrested,  and  transported  to  Cayenne  :  total  stagnation 
of  trade  :  some  Jews  offer  to  purchase  the  notes  at  discount  :  are 
transported  :  arrangement  for  resuming  payment  :  amount  of  notes 
in  circulation  at  the  time  of  stopping,  and  of  specie  in  the  bank  : 
shock  given  to  its  credit  :  attempted  to  be  supported  by, tyranny  : 
suspicion  and  severity  of  the  police  :  anecdotes. 

LETTER  XLIIL 

Rapacity  and  extortions  of  French  officers  in  Hanover  :  bribe  Madame 
Buonaparte  for  their  appointment  :  General  Mortier  :  his  birth  :  mi- 
litary appointments  :  mean  addresses  to  Buonaparte  :  his  marriage  : 
his  lady's  gallantries  :  splendid  christening  of  his  child  :  his  wealth, 
and  character  :  a  great  favourite  with  Buonaparte  :  Bernadotte  : 
his  birth,  political  intrigues,  military  exploits  and  violence  :  sent  am- 
bassador to  Vienna  :  his  insolent  conduct  there  :  bribed  by  Buona- 
parte, on  his  assuming  the  Imperial  dignity  :  his  barbarities  and  mer- 
ciless extortions  :  his  character. 

LETTER  XL IV. 

Men  of  letters  patronised  by  Buonaparte  :  some  obscure  writers  in  En- 
gland and  Ireland  pensioned  by  him  :  literary  mission  to  England  in- 
tended :  Buonaparte's  liberal  rewards  to  his  panegyrists  :  examples  : 
great  number  of  works  dedicated  to  him  :  more  by  Germans  and 
Italians  than  by  the  French  :  Spanjcetti  and  Ritterstein,  genealogists 
of  Buonaparte,  magnificently  rewarded  by  him  :  vast  number  of  pic- 
tures, statues  and  busts  representing  his  person  and  exploits.  Schu- 
maker,  a  German  artist,  executes  a  model  of  a  tomb  for  Buonaparte  '• 
how  remunerated. 

LETTER  XLV. 

Misery  and  poverty  of  the  French  people  :  wretchedness  of  the  ci-devant 
nobles,  and  returned  emigrants  :  their  employments  :  anecdotes  : 
great  number  ef  suicides. 

LETTER  XLVI. 

Different  opinions  respecting  Buonaparte's  private  character  '.  apparent 
attachment  to  his  wife  :  his  proposed  divorce  from  her,  and  marriage 
with  a  Russian  Princess  :  his  intrigue  with  Mademoiselle  George : 
her  insolent  conduct  :  Chaptal :  his  former  occupation :  political 
intrigues  and  employments  :  his  wealth  and  character 


CONTENTS,  il 

LETTER  XLVII. 

Miserable  state  of  Spain  :  ignorance  and  presumption  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace  :  the  Prince  of  Asturias  endeavours  to  remove  him  :  receives 
a  deputation  from  the  Spanish  nobles  :  character  of  the  Princess  of 
Asturias  :  the  Prince  of  Peace  informed  of  their  plans  :  his  mea- 
sures in  consequence  :  tries  to  conciliate  the  Prince  and  Princess  : 
is  repulsed  :  character  of  Herman,  secretary  to  the  French  embassy 
in  Spain  :  the  Prince  of  Peace  :  his  illiberal  prejudices  :  not  liked  by 
the  French  government :  Herman's  intrigue  with  a  girl  in  the  suite 
of  the  Princess  of  Asturias  :  his  discovery  in  consequence  :  plan  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess  :  disclosed  by  the  French  ambassador  to  the 
favourite  :  consequent  proceeding's  :  the  Duke  of  Moiilemar  inter- 
feres :  his  speech  to  the  King  :  note  of  the  Prince  of  Asturias  to  the 
King :  their  reconciliation. 

LETTER  XLVIII. 

The  Prince  of  Peace  places  spies  round  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  As» 
turias  :  his  insolent  conduct  to  them  :  indignation  of  the  Spanish  no- 
bles :  the  history  of  Don  Carlos  written  by  order  of  the  favourite  : 
burnt  by  the  queen's  confessor  :  dissimulation  of  the  French  ambas- 
sador, Bournonville  :  immense  sums  paid  by  Spain  to  France  •  de- 
ranged state  of  the  Spanish  finances  :  intrigue  of  Bournonville  to  ob- 
tain a  subsidy  :  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturias  disavow  his  asser- 
tions: punished  in  the  persons  of  their  favourites  :  revolution  and 
change  of  dynasty  expected  in  Spain  :  sovereignties  intended  for  Buo- 
naparte's brothers  :  Bournonville's  birth  and  character:  his  political 
and  military  employments. 

LETTER  XLIX. 

Madame  Buonaparte's  fears  of  her  brothers-in-law  :  their  powers  du- 
ring Napoleone's  absence  :  his  policy  :  supposed  consequence  of  Na  - 
poleone's  death  :  new  military  manners  :  General  Liebeau :  his  birth, 
vulgarity,  and  character  :  description  of  a.  military  wedding  :  Colonel 
Frial  :  his  birth  and  character  :  disputes  about  their  respective  pre- 
tensions to  the  Imperial  crown  among  the  military  members  of  the 
party  :  a  common  subject  of  discussion  and  dispute  among  the  mili- 
tary in  general. 

LETTER  L. 

Madame  Chevalier  :  her  person  and  manners  :  her  early  prostitution., 
and  first  entrance  on  the  stage  :  her  husband  joins  the  Jacobin  clubs, 
and  is  imprisoned  as  a  terrorist  :  first  appearance  of  Madame  Che- 
valier on  the  Hamburgh  stage  :  riot  in  consequence :  her  gallantries 
and  avarice  :  employed  by  one  of  Talleyrand's  female  agents  to  go  to 
Russia  :  her  intrigues  with  the  Emperor  Paul :  her  cruelty  and  ava- 
rice :  procures  the  cruel  treatment  of  the  Sardinian* 'secretary  :  num- 
ber of  her  victims  :  her  insinuation,  cunning,  and  effrontery  :  anec- 
dotes :  female  political  incendiaries  and  intriguers,  sent  by  the 
French  government  to  Vienna,  St.  Petersburg!!,  and  Berlin  :  two 

ladies  intended  for  the  P of  W •  and  D of  Y ,  their 

persons  and  accomplishments. 

LETTER  LI, 

Submission  of  America  to  the  mandates  of  France  :  views  of  France 
on  the  American  Continent  :  foments  the  disagreement  between 
Spain  and  the  United  States  :  captures  and  plunders  American  ships  : 
condemns  all  neutral  ships  trading  with  St.  Domingo.  General 
T*******,  French  ambassador  to  the  u*****  S*****  :  discontented 


»ii  CONTENTS. 

with  President  J********  :  why  :  birth  of  T*******  :  his  political  In  > 
trigues,  and  military  exploits  :  horrors  committed  by  him  in  La  Ven- 
dee :  his  letter  to  the  National  Convention  :  arrested  as  a  terrorist  .- 
writes  Memoirs  of  the  Vendean  \var  :  anecdote  of  Buonaparte  : 
Wealth  of  T*******  :  his  conceit,  and  character. 

LETTER  LII. 

Discontent  of  Buonaparte's  Italian  subjects  :  their  miserable  condition  : 
oppressed  and  plundered  by  French  generals  and  governors  :  Menou  • 
his  birth  and  infamous  chai'acter  :  fake  of  the  nobility  who  have 
joined  the  French  Revolution  :  Melzi-Eril  seduced  by  French  philo- 
sophers :  approves  of  the  French  Revolution  :  appointed  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Italian  Republic :  his  chagrin  on  Buonaparte's  assuming 
the  sovereignty  :  is  refused  leave  to  retire  to  Spain  :  attempts  suicide 
by  poison. 

LETTER  LIU. 

The  foreign  ambassadors  hesitate  to  salute  Cambaceres  and  Le  Brun, 
Serene  Highnesses  :  Buonaparte  insists  :  they  bribe  Talleyrand,  who 
obviates  the  difficulty :  Cambaceres  bribes  Talleyrand,  and  is  created 

a  Prince:   Madame  B s,  a  female  intriguer  and  tool  of  Talleyrand, 

alarms  the  Bavarian  minister  Cetto  :  he  conducts  this  petty  intrigue: 
Cambaceres  :  his  birth  •  infamous  character  :  raised  to  the  consulate 
by  Buonaparte  :  his  wealth  and  titles  :  his  brother. 

LETTER  LIV. 

King  of  Sweden  hated  by  Buonaparte :  national  character  of  the  Swedes : 
cause  of  Buonaparte's  hatred  :  Baron  Ehrens  ward  constantly  insulted 
by  him  :  orders  issued  to  imprison  the  Baron  for  expressing  his  sen- 
timents :  Education  and  character  of  Baron  Ehrensward  :  King  of 
Sweden  writes  to  Buonaparte  on  the  seizure  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien: 
recalls  Ehrensward,  and  orders  a  court  mourning  :  General  Caulin- 
court  and  fifty  banditti  hired  to  seize  the  King  of  Sweden':  intentions 
of  the  French  Government,  if  their  plot  had  succeeded  :  their  plan 
to  partition  the  Swedish  territory  :  character  of  the  King  of  Sweden 
and  his  counsellors  :  D'Ehrenheim  :  Count  de  Fersen  :  his  attach- 
ment and  fidelity  to  the  royal  family  of  France  ;  refused  admission  to 
the  Congress  of  Radstadt  by  Buonaparte  :  Baron  d'Armfeldt:  the 
friend  of  Gustavus  III:  appointed  guardian  of  the  present  King: 
sent  ambassador  to  Italy  :  outlawed :  takes  refuge  in  Russia,  an<5 
serves  with  distinction  under  Suwarrow  :  recalled  to  his  country, 
and  restored  to  his  dignities  :  his  military  talents  and  spirit. 

LETTER  LV. 

Buonaparte  dreads  the .  liberty  of  the  press  :  all  foreign  printers  and 
booksellers  under  the  control  of  his  police  :  emissaries  employed  to 
collect  literary  intelligence  :  number  of  French  newspapers  before 
and  during  the  Revolution  :  reduced  by  Buonaparte  :  under  the  sole 
direction  of  Barrere  :  foreign  papers  and  publications  prohibited  un- 
der severe  penalties:  examples  of  severity  :  official  presses  establish- 
ed to  forge  foreign  papers  :  dangerous  to  question  the  veracity  of 
the  Moniteur.  Anecdote. 

LETTER  LVI. 

Prince  of  Borghese  :  his  birth  :  joins  the  Revolution  :  his  meanness  and 
pride  :  marries  Madame  Le  Clerc's  fortune  :  her  vices  :  despises 
her  husband  :  her  curious  request  to  Buonaparte.  Buonaparte  ex- 
acts chastity  from  his  sisters-in-  law  ;  sudden  disappearance  of  Prin, 


CONTENTS,  xiil 

cesses  Joseph's  and  Louis'  gallants.  Princess  Louis  visits  Madame 
Ney  :  a  midnight  occurrence  during-  her  stay  :  she  is  placed  under 
the  care  of  Madame  Murat :  discovers  a  singular  intrigue  :  arrange- 
ments in  consequence  :  Princess  Louis*  maids  confined  by  the  po- 
lice :  one  of  them  pregnant  by  Louis. 

LETTER  LVII. 

ifFerent  sensations  of  the  army  of  England  on  being  ordered  to  march 
for  Germany  :  company  of  performers  sent  from  Paris  to  amuse  them  : 
plays  and  ballads  written  for  the  occasion  :  great  eflect  produced 
by  them  :  the  Grenadier's  Adieu,  a  ballad,  written  by  three  authors, 
profusely  rewarded  by  Buonaparte  :  stanzas  on  the  rumour  of  a  war 
with  Austria  :  distributed  to  the  company  at  Madame  Joseph's  : 
other  poetasters  how  rewarded  :  curious  blunder  at  Madame  Tal- 
leyrand's :  anecdote  of  an  ancient  tyrant. 
LETTER  LVIII. 

ortugal  forced  from  her  neutrality  by  her  connection  with  Spain  :  Por- 
tuguese plenipotentiary  at  Paris  in  1797  imprisoned  in  the  Temple  : 
rxtravagunt  demands  of  France  on  Portugal  supported  by  the  Prince 
of  Peace  :  unmerciful  plunder  of  Portugal  by  France  :  General 
Lp.pnes  :  his  birth  :  former  employments,  and  infamous  character  : 
his  mission  to  Portugal  a  punishment  for  robbing  the  military  chest  : 
his  insolent  manners  at  the  Court  of  Lisbon  :  smuggles  :  quit&his 
post,  and  returns  without  apology  :  demands  a  change  of  ministry  : 
is  recalled  ••  General  Junot  :  his  birth  :  military  appointments  and 
exploits  :  his  tyranny  and  corruption  while  Governor  of  Paris  :  his 
connection  with  a  gang  of  robbers- :  anecdote  of  his  swindling  :  Fitte, 
his  infamous  character  :  emigrates  to  England  :  cheats  the  English 
ministry  :  procures  the  murder  of  his  brother  and  sister. 

LETTER  LIX. 

ipolicy  of  the  league  of  1793  in  admitting  any  neutrality  :  danger  of 
neutral  states:  The  late  Count  Bernstorf:  his  political  character 
The  present  Count  Bernstorf:  his  system  of  politics  not  adapted  to 
existing  circumstances  :  impolicy  in  changing  the  alliance  of  Russia 
for  that  of  Prussia  :  prince  royal  of  Denmark,  his  talents  and  cha- 
racter :  incapacity  of  his  counsellors  :  a  paragraph  in  the  Moniteur 
disbands  a  Danish  army  :  neutrality  of  Denmark  violated  :  Grou- 
x-elle,  late  French  ambassador  in  Denmark  :  protects  and  encourages 
illuminati  and  innovators  there  :  his  education  :  ingratitude  to  the 
prince  of  Conde  :  his  talents  and  vices  :  Daguesseau  :  his  insignifi- 
cant character  :  his  secretary,  Desaugiers,  an  incendiary. 

LETTER  LX. 

rarice  and  rapacity  of  the  Buonaparte  family  :  immense  wealth  of 
Napoleone  :  his  imperial  and  royal  palaces  :  private  chateaux  of 
Madame  Napoleone  :  palaces  and  estates  of  Joseph,  Lucien,  Louis* 
and  Jerome  :  of  Madame  Lzetitia  Buonaparte,  princess  Bachiocchi, 
Santa  Cruce,  Murat,  Borghese  :  of  cardinal  Fesch  :  and  other  rela- 
tives of  Buonaparte  :  unparalleled  revolution  of  property  :  just  cause 
of  alarm  to  England. 

LETTER  LXI. 

arupaysan  immense  bribe  for  the  place  of  commissary-general  to 
the  French  army  in  Germany  :  his  great  wealth  acquired  by  gamb- 
ling :  the  terror  of  all  the  gambling  banks  on  the  continent  :  extor- 
tions of  the  French  generals  in  Germany ;  Angereau  :  his  birth  ; 

A 


xtv  CONTENTS. 

serves  as  a  spy  :  as  a  common  soldier  :  deserts  :  is  flogged  :  his  in- 
famy and  crimes  :  Van  Damme  :  his  birth  :  condemned  to  be  hang- 
ed  :  spared  by  the  judge,  and  sent  to  the  galleys  :  his  ingratitude  ; 
disgraced  by  Moreau  and  Pichegru  for  his  ferocity  and  crimes  :  re- 
stored to  rank  by  Buonaparte  :  his  wealth. 
LETTER  LXII. 

Pillage  and  extortions  of  the  French  armies  :  General  Ney :  his  con- 
duct at  Wetzlar  :  his  birth  :  former  occupation  :  political  intrigues 
and  military  appointments  :  his  wife  maid  of  honour  to  Empress  Jo- 
sephine :  her  birth  :  gallantries  :  pleasing  manners  :  gambling  and 
prostitution  :  Prince  Murat  :  his  crimes  :  birth  :  marries  iiuona- 
parte's  sister  :  his  immense  wealth  :  promotes  and  enriches  his  rela- 
tions :  effect  of  his  elevation  on  his  father  and  mother  :  rapine  the 
chief  object  of  revolutionists  :  Murat  the  executioner  of  Buonaparte's 
despotic  and  murderous  commands  :  jealous  of  his  wife  with  her 
brother  Lucien :  her  coquetry  and  gallantries  :  her  favourite  Fla- 
hault. 

LETTER  LXIII. 

Increased  vigilance  of  the  police  at  Paris  since  Buonaparte's  departure 
for  Germany  :aall  mandates  of  arrest  expedited  by  Louis  Buonaparte  : 
his  vicious  character  :  a  tragical  intrigue  :  another  intrigue. 
LETTER  LXIV. 

Dignified  conduct  of  Russia,  its  able  ministers  :  Count  Woronzoflf :  his 
talents,  services,  and  amiable  character :  instance  of  his  magnanimity  : 
Prince  Czartorinsky  :  his  great  information  and  polished  manners  : 
Count  de  Markoff:  his  political  services:  exiled  by  Paul:  recalled  by 
Alexander,  and  appointed  ambassador  to  France  :  his  surprise  at  the 
conduct  of  Buonaparte  to  foreign  ambassadors  :  his  witty  letter  to  his 
Court  on  the  occasion  :  his  dignified  conduct .  hated  by  Talleyrand, 
Talleyrand's  low  malice  ;  attempts  to  corrupt  the  fidelity  of  Madame 
Hus,  the  mistress  of  Count  Markoff:  conversation  of  Count  Markoff 
with  him  on  the  subject. 

LETTER  LXV. 

Legion  of  Honour,  when  determined  on  :  distribution  of  arms  of  ho- 
nour among  the  military  :  creation  of  knights  :  members  of  the  Le- 
gion of  Honour  divided  into  classes  :  Buonaparte's  desire  to  have 
Sovereigns  for  members  :  exchange  of  orders  between  Buonaparte 
and  the  Kings  of  Spain  and  Prussia  :  foreign  orders  debased  by  being 
conferred  on  Cambaceres,  Fouche,  &.c.  Grand  officers  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour,  ci-devant  tailors,  shoemakers,  barbers,  &c.  kings,  electors, 
and  princes.  Effect  of  the  institution  on  the  people  :  Villeaume,  an 
engraver,  forges  letters  of  knighthood,  sells  them,  and  escapes.  Ba- 
ron Von  Rinken,  the  agent  of  a  petty  German  Prince,  confined  in 
the  Temple  for  offering  patents  of  knighthood  to  sale  :  anecdotes  of 
Captain  Rouvais  and  a  cobler  :  Cambaceres  reproved  for  partiality 
to  the  Prussian  Eagle  :  Buonaparte  ornamented  with  an  immense 
number  of  Orders  :  presented  with  the  Grand  Cross  of  Malta  :  Order 
of  confidence,  intended  to  be  instituted  by  the  Empress  Josephine 
her  mantle  and  star. 

LETTER  LXVI. 

Fifteen  persons  brought  prisoners  from  La  Vendee  :  their  crime  not 
known  :  what  reported  to  be  :  impolicy  and  cruelty  of  attempting 
to  excite  an  insurrection  in  the  Chouan  departments  ;  apathy  of  the 


CONTENTS.  *y 

French  people  :  the  general  poverty  :  anecdote:  poverty  of  merchants 
and  tradesmen  :   vast  number  of  speculators  and  bankruptcies  :   nu- 
merous forgeries  and  swindling-  :  landholders  burthened  with  taxes  : 
example  :  their  spirit  and  independence. 
LETTER  LXVII. 

Military  education  of  the  French  youth  :  the  independence  of  Europe 
threatened  by  it :  the  only  mode  of  averting-  the  danger  :  Berthier's 
compliment  to  Buonaparte  :  the  advantage  of  the  French  over  their 
allies  :  bad  consequences  of  an  education  entirely  military  :  pointed 
out  by  Arnaud  :  his  exile  from  Paris  in  consequence  :  instance  of -se- 
verity against  a  schoolmaster,  for  deviating  from  the  established 
mode  :  his  pupils  taken  care  of  by  Government :  another  instance  of 
severity  in  this  respect  :  new  organization  of  the  Ministry  of  Police, 
and  number  of  spies  increased. 

LETTER  LXVIII. 

The  Pope's  Nuncio  publicly  rebuked  by  Buonaparte  :  the  relatives  of 
Buonaparte's  great  officers  generally  appointed  to  the  chief  dignities 
of  the  Galilean  Church  :  their  infamous  characters  :  the  brother  of 
General  Miollis  :  his  notorious  atheism  and  profligacy  :  nominated  by 
Buonaparte  to  the  Bishopric  of  Digne  :  the  Pope  hesitates  to  grant 
a  bull  for  that  purpose  :  his  Nuncio  at  Paris  applies  to  Buonaparte  : 
how  answered  :  the  nomination  of  Miollis  confirmed  by  the  Pope  : 
debauched  character  of  the  Italian  Bishops  :  anecdotes  of  the  Bishop 
ofPavia,  and  of  his  Grand  Vicars,  Sarini  and  Rami  :  hypocrisy  of 
the  French  Clergy  :  anecdotes  :  indifference  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment respecting  the  Religious  establishment :  want  of  Ministers  : 
to  what  to  be  attributed  :  Buonaparte  refuses  the  Pope  to  except  the 
Students  in  Theology  from  the  Military  Conscription  :  permits  him 
to  establish  a  Seminary  in  the  Ecclesiastical  States. 
^LETTER  LXIX. 

Violation  of  the  Prussian  neutrality  :  sudden  alteration  in  the  expres- 
sions of  the  French  Courtiers  in  regard  to  Prussia :  whence 
arising  :  Buonaparte's  ascendancy  in  Prussia  :  friendly  intercourse 
between  him  and  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  the  Empress  Jo- 
sephine and  the  Queen  :  friendship  of  upstarts  dangerous  :  Duroc's 
mission  to  Berlin  :  its  object :  followed  by  warlike  preparations  in 
Prussia:  necessity  of  Prussia's  instantly  joining  the  league  against 
France  :  reports  of  an  alliance  between  Prussia  and  England  :  a  war 
with  Prussia  desired  in  France  :  why. 

LETTER  LXX. 

Instances  of  impolitic  and  degrading  civility  of  the  Prussian  Monarch 
to  the  French  :  Field-marshal  Knobelsdorff,  his  satirical  reply  to 
Sieves  :  General  KnobelsdorfF,  his  insignificant  character  :  affection 
for  Buonaparte  :  his  favour  with  his  Sovereign,  and  political  mis- 
sions :  object  of  Count  Haugwitz's  mission  to  Vienna:  annual  subsi- 
dy proposed  by  France  to  Prussia  refused  :  Baron  de  Hardenberg : 
his  political  character  :  his  talents  :  his  public  employments  :  his 
private  agents  in  foreign  countries  :  Baron  de  Bulow  :  his  singular 
person  and  manners  :  confined  in  the  Temple,  and  supported  by  Sir 
Sidney  Smith  :  Marquis  dc  Lucchesini,  his  character  and  political 
transactions  :  Marchioness  de  Lucchesini  :  her  manners  and  gal- 
lantries :  Prince  Bachiocchi,  his  former  occupation 


xvx  CONTENTS, 

LETTER  LXXI. 

Unexampled  cruelty  of  the  French  Government  to  Captain  Wright  : 
necessity  of  regulating  the  distinction  and  treatment  of  prisoners 
of  war  :  generous  conduct  of  the  English  to  the  officers  and  men  of 
French  ships  landing  rebels  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  malefactors 
in  Wales  :  the  firmness  of  Captain  Wright,  offends  the  French  Go- 
vernment :  riches  and  rank  offered  to  him,  indignantly  refused  :  he  is 
put  onth2  rack,  and  most  inhumanly  tortured  :  his  heroic  conduct  : 
is  placed  under  the  care  of  a  surgeon  :  new  offers  made  him  :  again 
racked  :  undergoes  the  INFERNAL  torments  :  description  of  them  : 
strangled  by  a  Mameluke  :  the  particulars  of  this  horrid  transaction 
how  discovered  :  the  release  of  Captain  Wright  promised  to  the 
Spanish  ambassador :  why. 

LETTER  LXXII. 

Great  changes  to  be  made  in  the  constitution  and  internal  government 
of  France,  should  Buonaparte  return  victorious  :  heterogeneous  com- 
position of  the  tribunate  and  legislative  corps  :  Carnot  declaims 
against  Buonaparte's  Imperial  dignity,  by  his  permission  :  his  birth  : 
education  and  ingratitude  to  the  House  of  Bourbon  ;  his  crimes  and 
falsehood  :  his  letter  to  Lebon  :  his  talents  and  presumption  :  his 
wealth  :  instance  of  his  libertinism  and  cruelty  :  despised  and  mis- 
trusted by  Buonaparte  ;  Cavaignac  :  his  former  occupation  :  his  re- 
volutionary exploits  :  his  atrocities  :  anecdotes  :  Pinet :  his  lust  and 
cruelty. 

LETTER  LXXIII. 

Vast  naval  schemes  of  Buonaparte  :  his  immense  resources  t  great 
;.u.-T.ber  of  ships  built  since  the  present  war  :  Malouet's  official  ac- 
count of  the  number  of  officers  and  sailors  :  the  conscripts  universally 
prefer  the  naval  to  the  military  service  :  Genoa,  an  important  naval 
station,  acquired  by  France  :  number  of  ships  building  there  and  at 
Antwerp  :  Naples  and  Venice  threatened  :  deficiency  of  French  ad- 
mirals :  Murat  appointed  to  the  chief  command  of  the  combined 
fleets  :  the  proposed  plan  of  operations,  deranged  by  subsequent 
events  :  admiral  Truguet,  his  opinion  of  the  French  flotilla  :  occasion 
of  his  disgrace:  his  character:  public  employments  :  hated  by  Tal- 
leyrand :  canes  him  publicly  :  Villeneuve :  his  exploits  :  his  gascon- 
ade :  Gantheaume  :  his  promotions  :  saves  himself  by  swimming, 
when  POrient  blew  up  at  Aboukir  :  letter  from  Buonaparte  to  him  on 
the  occasion  :  his  naval  exploits  and  character  :  La  Crosse  :  his  in- 
trigues, fanaticism,  and  cruelty. 

LETTER  LXXIV. 

Apathy  of  the  French  people  :  indifferent  about  the  victories  obtained 
over  the  Austrians  :  rejoicings  at  Madame  Joseph  Buonaparte*s  : 
patriotic  verses  and  ballads  :  list  of  Buonaparte's  intended  Kings, 
Emperors,  Sec.  :  Arthur  O'Connor,  his  pi'esent  rank  and  views  in 
France  :  the  Irish  rebels  universally  despised  :  treated  as  criminals, 
and  act  as  such  :  their  infamy  and  ingratitude  :  anecdote. 

LETTER  LXXV. 

Absurdity  and  incoherence  of  the  plan  of  the  campaign  of  the  Aus- 
trians :  inactivity  of  the  army  under  the  Archduke  Charles,  to  what  5 
to  be  attributed  :  character  of  the  Archduke:  his  military  life  :  re- 
spected by  his  enemies  :  his  proclamations  composed  with  great  ad- 
roitness :  Massena  t  deserts  the  army  of  Ms  Sovereign  :  cause  of  his 
advancement  in  the  French  service  :  his  military  exploits  and  mer- 


CONTENTS.  .vvii 

ciless  pillage  :  quarrels  with  Buonaparte  :  appointed  by  him  to  the 
chief  command  in  Italy  :  his  wealth  and  good  fortune  :  disliked  by 
the  Buonapartes  for  his  familiarity  :  great  talents  of  General  St.  Cyr  : 
his  achievements  :  Count  de  Bellegarde  :  his  eminent  services  and 
distinguished  talents. 

LETTER  LXXVI. 

Buonaparte's  insolent  threat  at  Ulm  against  the  Emperor  of  Germany  : 
conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  it :  Louis  Buonaparte's  public  com- 
ment on  it  :  Abbe  Sieyes  :  his  sanguinary  plots  and  intrigues  :  has 
betrayed  and  survived  all  factions  :  his  restlessness  and  craft 
cowardice  and  ambition  :  his  wealth  :  Talleyrand's  opinion  of  him  : 
Buonaparte's  apparently  indiscreet  threat  at  Ulm  accounted  for  : 
General  Marmont  :  his  military  education,  and  public  employments  : 
his  honourable  character:  Buonaparte  demands  for  him  in  marriage 
the  daughter  of  the  banker  Perregaux  :  industry  and  ambition  of 
Perregaux  :  his  public  life  :  and  intrigue  with  Mademoiselle  Mars  : 
General  Marmont's  distinguished  services  :  a  great  favourite  of 
Buonaparte. 

LETTER  LXXVII. 

Another  great  revolution  supposed  necessary  to  counterbalance  that  of 
France  :  insignificance  and  presumption  of  General  Mack  :  his  per- 
sonal intrepidity  at  Lissa  :  his  theoretical  knowledge  and  declama- 
tion impose  on  the  Emperor  Joseph  :  his  campaigns  :  his  bad  con- 
duct at  the  head  of  the  Neapolitan  army  :  his  pusillanimous  conduct 
in  the  present  campaign ;  his  ill  health  :  his  fidelity  and  honour. 


INTERESTING  ADDITIONS. 

Account  of  Madame  de  Stael,  Annette  La  Vigne,  Martha  Glar, 
dame  Talleyrand,  and  of  the  French  Prisons, 


THE 

SECRET  HISTORY 

OF    THE 

COURT  AND  CABINET 

OF 

ST.  CLOUD. 

LETTER  I. 

Paris,  August^ 

MY    LORD, 

I  PROMISED  you  not  to  pronounce  in  haste  on  persons  and 
events  passing  under  my  eyes :  thirty -one  months  have  quick- 
ly passed  away,  since  I  became  an  attentive  spectator  of  the  ex- 
traordinary transactions,  and  of  the  extraordinary  characters,  of 
the  extraordinary  Court  and  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud.  If  my  talents 
to  delineate  equal  my  zeal  to  inquire,  and  my  industry  to  exa- 
mine ;  if  I  am  as  able  a  painter  as  I  have  been  an  indefatigable 
observer,  you  will  be  satisfied,  and  with  your  approbation  at 
once  sanction  and  reward  my  labours. 

With  most  princes,  the  supple  courtier  and  the  fawning  fa- 
vourite have  greater  influence  than  the  profound  statesman  and 
subtle  minister  ;  and  the  determinations  of  cabinets  are  therefore 
frequently-prepared  in  drawing-rooms,  and  discussed  in  the  closet. 
The  politician  and  the  counsellor  are  frequently  applauded  or 
censured  for  transactions,  which  the  intrigues  of  anti-chambers 
conceived,  and  which  cupidity  and  favour  gave  power  to  pro- 
mulgate. 

It  is  very  generally  imagined,  but  falsely,  that  Napoleone  Buo- 
naparte governs,  or  rather  tyrannizes  by  himself;  according  to  his 
own  capacity,  caprices,  or  interest :  that  all  r.is  acts,  all  his  changes, 
are  the  sole  consequence  of  his  own  exclusive,  unprejudiced  will, 
as  well  as  unlimited  authority  ;  that  both  his  greatness  and  his 
littleness,  his  successes  and  his  crimes,  originate  entirely  with 
himself;  that  the  fortunate  hero,  who  marched  triumphant  over 
•  the  Alps,  and  the  dastardly  murderer  that  disgraced  human  na- 
ture at  Jaffa,  because  the  same  person,  owed  victory  to  himself 

B 


.?;/::":  I'-'-j  :!SlJcftET* HISTORY  OF  THE 

alone,  and  by  himself  alone  commanded  massacre ;  that  the 
same  genius,  unbiassed  and  unsupported,  crushed  factions,  erect- 
ed a  throne,  and  reconstructed  racks ;  that  the  same  mind  re- 
stored and  protected  Christianity,  and  proscribed  and  assassina- 
ted a  d'Enghien. 

All  these  contradictions,  all  these  virtues  and  vices,  may  be 
found  in  the  same  person  ;  but  Buonaparte,  individually,  or  iso- 
lated, has  no  claim  to  them.  Except  on  some  sudden  occa- 
sions, that  call  for  immediate  decision,  no  sovereign  rules  less 
by  himself  than  Buonaparte  ;  because  no  sovereign  is  more  sur- 
rounded by  favourites  and  counsellors,  by  needy  adventurers 
and  crafty  intriguers. 

What  sovereign  has  more  relatives  to  enrich,  or  more  servi- 
ces to  recompense  ;  more  evils  to  repair,  more  jealousies  to 
dread,  more  dangers  to  fear,  more  clamours  to  silence  ;  or 
stands  more  in  need  of  information  and  advice  ?  Let  it  be  remem- 
bered, that  he  who  now  governs  empires  and  nations,  ten  years 
ago  commanded  only  a  battery  ;  and  five  years  ago  was  only  a 
military  chieftain.  The  difference  is  as  immense,  indeed,  be- 
tween the  sceptre  of  a  monarch  and  the  sword  of  a  general,  as 
between  the  wise  legislator,  who  protects  the  lives  and  property 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  the  hireling  robber,  who  wades 
through  rivers  of  blood  to  obtain  plunder  at  the  expense  and  mise- 
ry of  generations.  The  lower  classes  of  all  countries  have  pro- 
duced persons,  who  have  distinguished  themselves  as  warriors ; 
but  what  subject  has  yet  usurped  a  throne,  and  by  his  eminence 
and  achievements,  without  infringing  en  the  laws  and  liberties  of 
his  country,  proved  himself  worthy  to  reign  ?  Besides,  the  edu- 
cation which  Buonaparte  received  was  entirely  military  ;  and  a 
man  (let  his  innate  abilities  be  ever  so  surprising  or  excellent) 
who,  during  the  first  thirty  years  of  his  life,  has  made  eith- 
er military  or  political  tactics  or  exploits  his  only  study,  certain- 
ly cannot  excel  equally  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  camp.  It  would 
be  as  foolish  to  believe,  as  absurd  to  expect,  a  perfection  almost 
beyond  the  reach  of  any  man  ;  and  of  Buonaparte  more  than 
any  one  else.  A  man  who,  like  him,  is  the  continual  slave  of 
his  own  passions,  can  neither  be  a  good  nor  a  just,  an  indepen- 
dent nor  immaculate,  master. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  u 

Among  the  courtiers  who,  ever  since  Buonaparte  was  made 
First  Consul,  has  maintained  a  great  ascendancy  over  him,  is  the 
present  grand  marshal  of  his  court,  the  general  of  division,  Du- 
roc.  With  some  parts,  but  greater  presumption,  this  young 
man  is  destined  by  his  master  to  occupy  the  most  confidential 
places  near  his  person  ;  and  to  his  cure  are  entrusted  the  most 
difficult  and  secret  missions  at  foreign  courts.  When  he  is  ab- 
sent from  France,  the  liberty  of  the  continent  is  in  danger  ;  and 
when  in  the  Thuileries,  or  at  St.  Cioucl,  Buonaparte  thinks  him- 
self always  safe. 

Gerard  Ciuistophe  Michel  Duroc  was  born  at  Ponta-Mous- 
son,  in  the  department  of  Meurthe,  on  the  25th  of  October,  1772, 
of  poor  but  honest  parents.  His  father  kept  a  petty  chandler's 
shop;  but  by  the  interest  and  generosity  of  Abbe  Duroc,  a  dis- 
tant relation,  he  was  so  well  educated,  that  in  March,  1752,  he 
became  a  sub-lieutenant  of  the1  artillery .  In  1796  he  served  hi 
Italy,  as  a  captain,  under  General  Andreossy,  by  whom  he  was 
recommended  to  General  i'Espinasse,  then  commander  of  the  ar- 
tillery of  the  army  of  Italy,  who  made  him  an  aide -tie -camp. — 
In  that  situation  Buonaparte  remarked  his  activity,  and  was 
pleased  with  his  manners,  and  therefore  attached  him  as  an  aide- 
de-camp  to  himself.  Duroc  soon  became  a  favourite  \v;th  his 
chief,  and,  notwithstanding  the  intrigues  of  his  rivals,  he  has 
continued  to  be  so  to  this  day. 

It  has  been  asserted,  by  his  enemies,  no  doubt,  that  by  impli- 
cit obedience  to  his  general's  orders,  by  an  unresisting  compla- 
cency, and  by  executing,  without  hesitation,  the  most  cruel 
mandates  of  his  superior,  he  has  fixed  himself  so  firmly  in  his 
good  opinion,  that  he  is  irremoveable.  It  has  also  been  stated 
that  it  was  Duroc  who  commanded  the  drowning  and  burying 
alive  of  the  wounded  French  soldiers  in  Italy  in  1797  ;  and  that 
it  was  he  who  inspected  their  poisoning  in  Syria  in  1799,  where 
he  was  wounded  during  the  siege  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre.  He  was 
among  the  few  officers  whom  Buonaparte  selected  for  his  com- 
panions,  when  he  quitted  the  army  of  Egypt,  and  landed  with 
him  in  France  in  October,  1799. 

Hitherto  Duroc  had  only  shown  himself  a  brave  soldier  and 
obedient  officer  ;  but  after  the  revolution  which  made  Buonaparte 


4  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

a  First  Consul,  he  entered  upon  another  career.  He  was  then, 
for  the  first  time,  employed  in  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Berlin, 
where  he  so  far  insinuated  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  their 
Prussian  Majesties,  that  the  King  admitted  him  to  the  royul  ta- 
ble, and  on  the  parade  at  Potsdam  presented  him  to  his  gene- 
rals and  officers,  as  an  aide-de-camp  du  plus  grand  homme  que 
je  connois  ;  whilst  the  Queen  gave  him  a  scarf,  knitted  by  her 
own  fair  hands. 

The  fortunate  result  of  Duroc's  intrigues  in  Prussia,  in  1799, 
encouraged  Buonaparte  to  dispatch  him,  in  1801,  to  Russia; 
where  Alexander  I.  received  him  with  that  noble  condecension, 
so  natural  to  this  great  and  good  prince.  He  succeeded  at  St. 
Petersburg!!  in  arranging  the  political  and  commercial  difficul- 
ties and  disagreements  between  France  and  Russia  ;  but  his  pro- 
posal for  a  defensive  alliance  was  declined. 

An  anecdote  is  related  of  his  political  campaign  in  the  North, 
upon  the  barren  banks  of  the  Neva,  which,  in  causing  much  en- 
tertainment to  the  inhabitants  of  the  fertile  banks  of  the  Seine, 
has  not  a  little  displeased  the  military  diplomatist. 

Among  Talleyrand's  female  agents,  sent  to  cajole  Paul  I.  du- 
ring the  latter  part  of  his  reign,  was  a  Madame  Bonreil,  whose 

reiii  name  is  de  F .  When  this  unfortunate  prince  was  no 

more,  most  of  the  French  male  and  female  intriguers  in  Russia 
thought  it  necessary  to  shift  their  quarters,  and  to  eifipect,  on 
the  territory  of  neutral  Prussia,  further  instructions  from  Paris, 
where  and  how  to  proceed.  Madame  Eonosil  had  removed  to 
Koenigsberg.  In  the  second  week  of  May,  1801,  when  Du- 
roc  passed  through  that  town  for  St.  Petersburg!!,  he  visited  this 
lady,  according  to  the  orders  of  Buonaparte,  and  obtained  from 
her  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  principal  persons,  who  were  ii> 
clined  to  be  serviceable  to  France,  and  might  be  trusted  by  him 
upon  the  present  occasion.  By  inattention  or  mistake  she  had 
rnis-spelled  the  name  of  one  of  the  most  trusty  and  active  adher- 
ents of  Buonaparte  ;  and  Duroc,  therefore,  instead  of  addressing 
himself  to  the  Polish  Count  de  S — Iz,  went  to  the  Polish  Count  de 

S tz.  This  latter  was  as  much  flattered  as  surprised,  upon 

seeing  an  aid-de-camp  and  envoy  of  the  First  Consul  of  France 
enter  his  apartments,  seldom  visited  before  but  by  usurers,  ga 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

sters,  and  creditors  ;  and  on  hearing  the  object  of  this  visit,  began 
to  think  either  the  envoy  mad  or  himself  dreaming.  Under- 
standing, however,  that  money  would  be  of  little  consideration, 
if  the  point  desired  by  the  First  Consul  could  be  carried,  he  de- 
termined to  take  advantage  of  this  fortunate  hit,  and  invited  Du- 
roc  to  sup  with  him  the  same  evening  ;  when  he  promised  him 
he  should  meet  with  persons  who  could  do  his  business,  provided 
his  pecuniai  y  resources  were  as  ample  as  he  had  stated. 

This  Count  de  S tz  was  one  of  the  most  extravagant  and 

proiligate  subjects  that  Russia  had  acquired  by  the  partition  of 
Poland.  After  squandering  away  his  own  patrimony,  he  had 
ruined  his  mother  and  two  sisters,  and  subsisted  now  entirely  by 
gambling  and  borrowing.  Among  his  associates,  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances with  himself,  was  a  Chevalier  de  Gausac,  a  French 
adventurer,  pretending  to  be  an  emigrant  from  the  vicinity  oi 
Thoulouse.  To  him  was  communicated  what  had  happened 
in  the  morning ;  and  his  advice  was  asked  how  to  act  in  the  even- 
ing. It  was  SOGI>-  settled,  that  de  Gausac  should  be  transformed 
into  a  Russian  Count  de  \V — ,  a  nephew  and  confidential  secre- 
tary of  the  chancellor  of  the  same  name  ;  and  that  one  Caumar- 
tin,  another  French  adventurer,  who  taught  fencing  at  St.  Peters- 
burgh,  should  act  the  part  of  Prince  M — ,  an  aid-de-camp  of  the 
emperor ;  and  that  all  three  together  should  strip  Duroc,  and  share 
the  spoil.  At  the  appointed  hour  Buonaparte's  agent  arrived, 
and  was  completely  the  dupe  of  these  adventurers,  who  plunder- 
ed him  of  twelve  hundred  thousand  livres,  50,0001.  Though  not 
many  days  passed  before  he  discovered  the  imposition,  prudence 
prevented  him  from  denouncing  the  impostors ;  and  this  blunder 
would  have  remained  a  secret  between  himself,  Buonaparte,  and 
Talleyrand,  had  not  the  unusual  expenses  of  Caumartin  excited 
the  suspicion  of  the  Russian  police  minister,  who  soon  discovered 
the  source  from  which  they  had  flowed.  De  Gausac  had  the 
imprudence  to  return  to  this  capital  last  spring,  and  is  new  shut 
up  in  the  Temple,  where  he  probably  will  be  forgotten. 

As  this  loss  was  more  ascribed  to  the  negligence  of  Madame 
Bonoeil,  than  to  the  mismanagement  of  Duroc,  or  his  \rant  of 
penetration,  his  reception  at  the  Thuileries,  though  not  so  gra- 
cious as  on  his  return  from  Berlin,  nineteen  mouths. before?  wa&, 

32 


6  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

however  such  as  convinced  him,  that  if  he  had  not  increased,  he 
had  at  the  same  time  not  lessened,  the  confidence  of  his  master: 
and  indeed,  shortly  afterwards,  Buonaparte  created  him  first  pre- 
fect of  ids  palace,  and  procured  him  for  a  wife  the  only  daughter 
of  a  rich  Spanish  banker.  Rumour,  however,  says,  that  Buona- 
parte was  not  quite  disinterested,  when  he  commanded  and  con- 
cluded this  match,  and  that  the  fortune  of  Midame  Duroc  has  paid 

for  the  expensive  supper  of  her  husband  with  Count  de  S tz 

at  St.  Petersburg!!. 


LETTER  II. 

Paris,  August i  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THOUGH  the  treaty  of  Luneville  will  probably  soon  be  buried 
in  the  rubbish  of  the  treaty  of  Amiens,  the  influence  of  thtir  pa- 
rents in  the  cabinet  of  St.  Cloud  is  as  great  as  ever  :  I  say  their 
parents,  because  the  crafty  ex-bishop,  Talleyrand,  foreseeing  the 
short  existence  of  these  bastard  diplomatic  acts,  took  care  to  com- 
pliment the  innocent  Joseph  Buonaparte  with 'a  share  in  the  pa- 
rentage, although  they  were  his  own  exclusive  offspring. 

Joseph  Buonaparte,  who,  in  1797,  from  an  attorney's  clerk,  at 
Ajaccio,  in  Corsica,  was  at  once  transformed  into  an  ambassador 
at  the  court  of  Rome,  had  hardly  read  a  treaty,  or  seen  a  dispatch 
written,  before  he  was  himself  to  conclude  the  one,  and  to  dictate 
the  other.  Had  he  not  been  supported  by  able  secretaries,  go- 
vernment would  soon  have  been  convinced,  that  it  is  as  impossible 
to  confer  talents,  as  it  is  easy  to  give  places  to  men  to  whom  na- 
ture has  refused  parts,  and  on  whom  a  scanty  or  neglected  educa- 
tion has  bestowed  no  improvements.  Deep  and  reserved,  like  a 
true  Indian,  but  vain  and  ambitious,  like  his  brothers,  under  the 
character  of  a  statesman,  he  has  only  been  the  political  puppet  of 
Talleyrand,  If  he  has  sometimes  been  applauded  upon  the  sta- 
ges where  he  has  been  placed,  he  is  also  exposed  to  the  hooting 
and  hisses  of  the  suffering  multitude  ;  while  the  minister  pockets 
undisturbed  all  the  entrance-money,  and  conceals  his  wickedness 
and  art  under  the  cloak  of  Joseph  j  which  protects  him  beside^ 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  •  ? 

against  the  anger  and  fury  of  Napoleone.  No  negotiation  of  any 
consequence  is  undertaken,  no  diplomatic  arrangements  arc  un- 
der consideration,  but  Joseph  is  always  consulted,  arid  Napoleone 
informed  of  the  consultation.  Hence  none  of  Buonaparte's  mi- 
nisters has  suffered  less  from  his  violence  and  resentment  than 
Talleyrand,  who,  in  the  political  department,  governs  him  who 
governs  France  and  Italy. 

As  early  as  1800,  Talleyrand  determined  to  throw  the  odium 
of  his  own  outrages  against  the  law  of  nations  upon  the  brother  of 
bis  master.  Lucien  Buonaparte  was  that  year  sent  ambassador 
to  Spain,  but  not  sharing  with  the  minister  the  large  profits  of  I. is 
appointment,  his  diplomatic  career  was  but  short.  Joseph  is  as 
greedy  and  as  ravenous  as  Lucien,  but  not  so  frank  or  indis- 
creet. Whether  he  knew  or  not  of  Talleyrand's  immense  gain  by 
the  pacification  at  LunevLle  in  February,  1801,  he  did  not  neglect 
his  own  individual  interest.  The  day  previous  to  the  signature 
of  this  treaty,  he  dispatched  a  courier  to  the  rich  army  contractor, 
Collet,  acquainting  him,  in  secret,  of  the  issue  of  the  negotiation, 
and  ordering  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  purchase  six  millions  of 
livres,  250,0001.  in  the  stocks,  on  his  account.  On  Joseph's  arri- 
val at  Paris,  Collet  sent  rum  the  state  bonds  for  the  sum  ordered, 
together  with  a  very  polite  letter  ;  but  though  he  waited  on  the 
grand  pacificator  several  times  afterwards,  all  admittance  was  re^ 
fused,  until  a  douceur  of  one  million  of  livres,  nearly  42,0001.  of 
Collet's  private  profit,  opened  the  door.  In  return,  during  the 
discussion  between  France  and  England  in  the  summer  of  1801, 
and  in  the  spring  of  1802,  Collet  was  continued  Joseph's  private 
agent,  and  shared  with  his  patron,  within  twelve  months,  a  clear 
gain  of  thirty-two  millions  of  livres. 

Some  of  the  secret  articles  of  the  treaty  of  Luneville  gave  Aus- 
tria, during  the  insurrection  in  Switzerland,  in  the  autumn  of 
1802,  an  opportunity  and  a  right  to  make  representations  against 
the  interference  of  France  ;  a  circumstance  which  greatly  dis- 
pleased Buonaparte,  who  reproached  Talleyrand  for  his  want  of 
foresight,  and  of  having  been  outwitted  by  the  cabinet  of  Vienna. 
The  minister,  on  the  very  next  day,  laid  before  his  master  the 
correspondence  that  had  passed  between  him  and  Joseph  Buona- 
parte, during  the  negotiation,  concerning  these  secret  articles^ 


&  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

which  were  found  to  have  been  entirely  proposed  and  settled  by 
Joseph  ;  who  had  been  induced  by  his  secretary  and  factotum 
(a  creature  of  Talleyrand)  to  adopt  sentiments,  for  which  that 
minister  had  been  paid,  according  to  report,  six  hundred  thou- 
sand livres,  25,0001.  Several  other  tricks  have  in  the  same  man- 
ner been  played  upon  Joseph,  who,  notwithstanding,  has  the  mo- 
desty to  consider  himself  (much  to  the  advantage  and  satisfaction 
of  Talleyrand)  the  first  statesman  in  Europe,  and  the  good  fortune 
to  be  thought  so  by  his  brother  Napoleone. 

When  a  rupture  with  England  was  apprehended,  in  the  spring 
of  1803,  Talleyrand  never  signed  a  dispatch,  that  was  not  pre- 
viously communicated  to,  and  approved  by,  Joseph,  before  its  con- 
tents were  sanctioned  by  Napoleone.  This  precaution  chiefly 
continued  him  in  place,  when  Lord  Whit  worth  left  this  capital, 
a  departure  that  incensed  Napoleone  to  such  a  degree,  that  he 
entirely  forgot  both  the  dignity  of  his  rank  amidst  the  generals, 
a  becoming  deportment  to  the  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps, 
and  ,is  duty  to  his  mother  and  brothers,  who  all,  more  or  less, 
experienced  the  effects  of  his  violent  passions.  He  thus  accost- 
ed Talleyrand,  who  purposely  arrived  late  at  his  circle  :  "  Well! 
the  English  ambassador  is  gone ;  and  we  must  again  go  to  win*. 
Were  my  generals  as  great  fools  as  some  of  my  ministers,  I 
should  despair  indeed  of  the  issue  of  my  contest  v.ith  these  inso- 
lent islanders.  Many  believe  that  had  I  been  more  ably  support- 
ed in  my  cabinet,  I  should  not  have  been  under  the  necessity  of 
taking  the  field,  as  a  rupture  might  have  been  prevented."  "  Such, 
Citizen  First  Consul  1"  answered  the  trembling  and  bowing  mi- 
nister, "  is  not  the  opinion  of  the  counsellor  of  state,  citizen  Jo- 
seph Buonaparte."  "  Well,  then,"  said  Napoleone,  as  recollect- 
ing himself,  "  England  wishes  for  war,  and  she  shall  suffer  for 
it — This  shall  be  a  war  of  extermination,  depend  upon  it."  The 
name  of  Joseph  alone  moderated  Napoleone's  fury,  and  changed 
its  ob;ect.  It  is  with  him  what  the  harp  of  David  was  with  Saul. 
Talleyrand  knows  it,  and  is  no  loser  by  that  knowledge.  I  must, 
however,  in  justice  say,  that  had  Buonaparte  followed  his  minis- 
ter's advice,  and  suffered  himself  to  be  entirely  guided  by  his 
counsel,  all  hostilities  with  England,  at  that  time,muht  have  been 
avoided  ;  her  government  would  have  been  lulled  into  security 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  9 

by  the  cession  of  Malta  and  some  commercial  regulations,  and 
her  i'uture  conquest,  during  a  time  of  peace,  have  been  attempted 
upon  plans  duly  organized,  that  might  have  ensured  success.  He 
never  ceased  to  repeat,  "  Citizen  First  Consul !  some  few  years 
longer  peace  with  Great  Britain,  and  the  Te  Deums  of  modern 
Britons,  for  the  conquest  and  possession  of  Malta,  will  be  consi- 
dered by  their  children  as  the  funeral  hymns  of  their  liberty  and 
independence." 

It  was  upon  this  memorable  occasion*  of  Lord  Whitworth's 
departure,  that  Buonaparte  is  known  to  have  betrayed  the  most 
outrageous  acts  of  passion  ;  he  rudely  forced  his  mother  from  his 
closet,  and  forbade  his  own  sisters  to  approach  his  person  ;  he 
confined  Madame  Buonaparte  for  several  hours  to  her  chamber; 
he  dismissed  favourite  generals  ;  treated  with  ignominy  members 
of  r.is  council  of  state  ;  and  towards  his  physician,  secretaries,  und 
principal  attendants,  he  committed  unbecoming  and  disgraceful 
marks  of  personal  outrage.  I  have  heard  it  affirmed,  that  though 
her  husband,  when  shutting  her  up  in  her  dressing-room,  put  the 
key  in  Ids  pocket,  Madame  Napoicone  found  means  to  resent  the 
ungallant  behaviour  of  her  spouse,  with  tne  assistance  of  Madame 
Remusat. 


LETTER  III. 

Paris)  August)  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

NO  act  of  Buonaparte's  government  has  occasioned  so  many, 
so  opposite,  and  so  violent  debates,  among  the  remnants  of  revo- 
lutionary factions,  composing  his  senate  and  council  of  state,  as 
the  introduction  and  execution  of  the  religious  concordat  signed 
with  the  Pope.  Joseph  was  here  again  the  ostensible  negotiator, 
though  he,  on  this  as  well  as  former  occasions,  concluded  nothing 
that  had  not  been  prepared  and  digested  by  Talleyrand. 

Buonaparte  does  not  in  general  pay  much  attention  to  the  opi- 
nions of  others,  when  they  do  not  agree  with  his  own  views  and 
interests,  or  coincide  with  his  plans  of  reform  or  innovation  ;  but 
having,  in  his  public  career,  professed  himself  by  turns  an  atheist 


10  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

and  an  infidel,  the  worshipper  of  Christ  and  of  Mahomet,  he 
could  not  decently  silence  those  who,  after  deserting  or  denying 
the  God  of  tneir  forefathers,  and  of  their  youth,  continued  con- 
stant and  firm  in  their  apostacy.  Of  those  who  deliberated  con- 
cerning the  restoration  or  exclusion  of  Christianity,  and  the  ac- 
ceptance or  rejection  of  the  concordat,  Fouche,  Francois  de  Nantz, 
Roederer  and  Sieycs,  were  for  the  religion  of  nature  ;  Volney, 
Real,  Chaptal,  Bourrienne,  and  Lucien  Buonaparte,  for  atheism  ; 
and  Portalis,  Gre^oire,  Cambaceres,  Le  Brun,  Talleyrand,  Jo- 
seph and  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  for  Christianity.  Besides  the 
sentiments  of  these  confidential  counsellors,  upwards  of  two  hun- 
dred memoirs,  for  or  against  the  Christian  religion,  were  pre- 
sented to  the  First  Consul,  by  uninvited  and  volunteer  counsellors ; 
all  differing  as  much  from  each  other  as  the  members  of  his  own 
privy  council. 

Many  persons  do  Madame  Buonaparte,  the  mother,  the  ho- 
nour of  supposing  that  to  her  assiduous  representations  is  prin- 
cipally owing  the  recal  of  the  priests,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
altars  of  Christ.  She  certainly  is  the  most  devout,  or  rather  the 
mort  superstitious,  of  her  family,  and  of  her  name  ;  but  had  not 
Talleyrand  and  Portalis  previously  convinced  Napoleone  of  the 
policy  of  re-establishing  a  religion,  which,  for  fourteen  centuries, 
had  preserved  the  throne  of  the  Bourbons  from  the  machinations 
of  Republicans,  and  other  conspirators  ag-dnst  monarchy,  it  is  ve- 
ry probable  that  her  representations  would  have  been  as  ineffect- 
ive as  her  piety  or  her  prayers.  So  long  ago  as  1796,  she  im- 
plored the  mercy  of  Napoleone  for  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Italy  ; 
and  entreated  him  to  spare  the  Pope,  and  the  papal  territory,  at  the 
very  time  his  soldiers  were  laying  waste  and  ravaging  the  legacy 
of  Bologna,  and  of  Ravenna,  both  incorporated  with  his  new- 
formed  Cisalpine  Republic  ;  where  one  of  his  first  acts  of  sove- 
reignty, in  the  name  of  the  then  sovereign  people,  was,  the  con- 
fiscation of  church  lands,  and  the  sale  of  the  estates  of  the  clergy. 
Of  the  prelates  who  with  Josepn  Buonaparte  signed  the  con- 
cordat, the  Cardinal  Gonsalvi  and  the  Bishop  Bernier  have,  by 
their  labours  and  intrigues,  not  a  little  contributed  to  the  present 
church  establishment  in  this  country  ;  and  to  them  Napoleone  is 
ynuch  indebted  for  the  intrusion  of  the  Buonaparte  dynasty  among 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  11 

the  houses  of  sovereign  princes.  The  former,  intended  from  his 
youth  for  the  church,  sees  neither  honour  in  this  world,  nor 
hopes  for  any  blessing  in  the  next,  but  exclusively  from  its  bo- 
som and  its  doctrine.  With  capacity  to  figure  as  a  country  cu- 
rate, he  occupies  the  post  of  the  chief  secretary  of  state  to  the 
Pope  ;  and  though  nearly  of  the  same  age,  but  of  much  weaker 
constitution  than  his  sovereign,  he  was  ambitious  enough  to  de- 
mand Buonaparte's  promise  of  succeeding  to  the  papal  see,  and 
weak  and  wicked  enough  to  wish  and  expect  to  survive  a  bene- 
factor of  a  calmer  mind  and  better  health  than  himself.  It  was 
he  who  encouraged  Buonaparte  to  require  the  presence  of  Pius 
VII.  in  France,  and  who  persuaded  this  weak  pontiff  to  under- 
take a  journey  that  has  caused  so  much  scandal  among  the  truly 
faithful  ;  and  which,  should  ever  Austria  regain  her  former  su- 
premacy in  Italy,  will  send  the  present  Pope  to  end  his  days  in  a 
convent,  and  make  the  successors  of  St.  Peter,  what  this  aposile 
was  himself,  a  bishop  of  Rome,  and  not'. ing  more. 

Bernier  was  a  curate  in  La  Vendee  before  the  revolution,  and 
one  of  those  priests  who  lighted  the  torch  of  civil  war  in  that 
unfortunate  country,  under  pretence  of  defending  the  throne 
of  his  King,  and  the  altars  of  his  God.  He  not  only  possessed 
great  popularity  among  the  lower  classes,  but  acquired  so  far 
the  confidence  cf  the  VentK-an  chiefs,  that  he  was  appointed  one 
of  the  supreme  and  directing  council  of  the  Royalists  and  Chou- 
ans.  Even  so  late  as  the  summer  of  1799,  he  continued  not  only 
unsuspected,  but  was  trusted  by  the  insurgents  in  the  wes- 
tern departments.  In  the  winter,  however,  of  the  same  year, 
he  had  been  gained  over  by  Buonaparte's  emissaries,  and  was 
seen  at  his  levees  in  the  TLuileries.  It  is  stated  that  General 
Brune  made  him  renounce  his  former  principles,  desert  his  for- 
mer companions,  and  betray  to  the  then  First  Consul  of  the 
French  Republic  the  secrets  of  the  friends  of  lawful  monarchy,  of 
the  faithful  subjects  of  Louis  XVIII.  His  perfidy  has  been  re- 
warded with  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  livres  in  ready  mo- 
ney, with  the  see  of  Orleans,  and  with  the  promise  of  a  cardinal's 
hat.  He  lias  also,  with  the  Cardinals  Gonsalvi,  Caprara,  Fesch, 
Cambaceres,  and  Mauri,  Buonaparte's  promise,  and,  of  course, 
the  expectation  of  the  Roman  tiara.  He  was  one  of  the  preiatcs 


12  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

who  officiated  at  the  late  coronation,  and  is  now  confided  in  as  a 
person  who  has  too  far  committed  himself  with  his  legitimate 
prince,  and  whose  past  treachery,  therefore,  answers  for  his  lu- 
ture  fidelity. 

This  religious  concordat,  of  the  10th  of  September,  1801,  as 
well  as  all  other  constitutional  codes  emanating  from  revolu- 
tionary authorities,  proscribes  even  in  protecting.  The  profes- 
sors and  protectors  of  the  religion  of  universal  peace,  benevo- 
lence and  forgiveness,  banish,  in  this  concordat,  from  France, 
for  ever,  the  Cardinals  Rohan  and  Montmorency,  and  the  Bi- 
shop of  Arras  ;  whose  dutiful  attachment  to  their  unfortunate 
prince  would,  in  better  times,  and  in  a  more  just  and  generous 
nation,  have  been  recompensed  with  distinctions,  and  honoured 
even  by  magnanimous  foes. 

When  Madame  Napoleone  was  informed  by  her  husband  of 
the  necessity  of  choosing  her  almoner  and  chaplain,  and  of  attend- 
ing regularly  the  mass,  she  first  fell  a  laughing,  taking  it  mere- 
ly for  a  joke :  the  serious  and  severe  looks,  and  the  harsh  and 
threatening  expressions,  of  the  First  Consul,  soon,  however, 
convinced  her  how  much  she  was  mistaken.  To  evince  her 
repentance,  she,  on  the  very  next  day,  attended  her  mother- 
in-law  to  church,  who  was  highly  eaified  by  the  sudden  and  reli- 
gious turn  of  her  daughter,  and  did  not  fail  to  .ascribe  to  the  ef- 
ficacious interference  of  one  of  her  favourite  saints  tils  conversion 
of  a  profane  sinner.  But  Napoleone  was  not  the  dupe  of  this 
church-going  mummery  of  his  wife,  whom  he  ordered  his  spies 
to  watch  ;  these  wei  e  unfortunate  enough  to  discover,  that  she 
went  to  the  mass  more  to  fulfil  her  appointments  with  her  lovers 
than  to  pray  to  her  Saviour  ;  ami  that  even  by  the  side  of  her  mo- 
ther she  read  billets-doux  and  love-letters,  when  that  pious  lady 
supposed  ti;ut  she  read  her  prayers,  because  her  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  her  bi\;\iury.  Without  relating  to  any  one  this  discovery 
of  his  JoscpS  fine's  frailties,  N  apoieone,  after  a  violent  connubial  fra- 
Cas  and  repiii.jand,  and  after  a  solitary  confinement  of  her  for 
six  days,  --ave  immediate  orders  to  have  the  chapels  of  the  Tluii!- 
eries  and  of  St.  Cloud  rcpuiix-d  ;  and,  until  these  were  ready,  Car- 
dinal Cambaceres  an;  .  by  turns,  said  the  mass  in  her  pri- 
vate apartments,  where  none  but  selected  favourites  or  favoured 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  1-3 

courtiers  were  admitted.  Madame  Napoleone  now  never  ne- 
glects the  mass,  but,  if  not  accompanied  by  her  husband,  is  es- 
corted by  a  guard  of  honour,  among  whom  she  knows  that  he 
has  several  agents  watching  her  motions,  and  her  very  looks. 

In  the  month  of  June,  1803,  I  dined  with  Viscount  de  Segur  ; 
and  Joseph  and  Lucien  Buonaparte  were  among  the  guests.  The 
latter  jocosely  remarked  with  what  facility  the  French  Christians 
suffered  themselves  to  be  hunted  in  and  out  of  their  temples,  ac- 
cording to  the  fanaticism  or  policy  of  their  rulers  ;  which  he  ad- 
duced as  a  proof  of  the  great  progress  of  philosophy  and  tolera- 
tion in  France.  A  young  officer  of  the  party,  Jacquemont,  a  re- 
lation of  the  former  husband  of  the  present  Madame  Lucien, 
observed,  that  he  thought  it  rather  an  evidence  of  the  indiffer- 
ence of  the  French  people  to  all  religion  ;  the  consequence  of  the 
great  havoc  the  tenets  of  infidelity  and  of  atheism  had  made  among 
the  flocks  of  the  faithful.  This  was  again  denied  by  Buona- 
parte's aide-de-camp,  Savary,  who  observed,  that  had  this  been 
the  case,  the  First  Consul  (who  certainly  was  as  well  acquainted 
with  the  religious  spirit  of  Frenchmen  as  any  body  else)  would 
not  have  taken  the  trouble  to  conclude  a  religious  concordat,  nor 
have  been  at  the  expense  of  providing  for  the  clergy.  To  this  as- 
sertion Buonaparte  nodded  assent.  When  the  dinner  was  over, 
de  Segur  took  me  to  a  window,  expressing  his  uneasiness  at  what 
he  called  the  imprudence  of  Jacquemont,  who,  he  apprehended, 
from  Joseph's  silence  and  manner,  would  not  escape  punish- 
ment, for  having  indirectly  blamed  both  the  restorer  of  religion 
and  his  plenipotentiary.  These  apprehensions  were  justified  : 
on  the  next  day  Jacquemont  received  orders  to  join  the  colonial 
depot  at  Havre  ;  but  refusing  to  obey,  by  giving  in  his  resigna- 
tion as  a  captain,  he  was  arrested,  shut  up  in  the  Temple,  and 
afterwards  transported  to  Cayenne  or  Madagascar.  His  relatives 
and  friends  are  still  ignorant  whether  he  is  dead  or  alive,  and 
what  is  or  has  been  his  place  of  exile.  To  a  petition  presented 
bv  Jacquemont's  sister,  Madame  de  Veaux,  Joseph  answered, 
"that  he  never  interfered  with  the  acts  of  the  haute  police  of 
his  brother  Napoleone's  government,  being  well  convinced  both 
«f  injustice  and  moderation" 

e 


14  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  IV. 

Paris,  August^  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THAT  Buonaparte  had,  as  far  back  as  February,  1803,  (when 
the  king  of  Prussia  proposed  to  Louis  XVIII.  the  formal  renun- 
ciation of  his  heriditary  rights  in  favour  of  the  First  Consul)  de- 
termined to  assume  the  rank  and  title,  with  the  power,  of  a  sove- 
reign, nobody  can  doubt.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  war  with  En- 
gland, he  would,  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  or  twelve  months 
earlier,  have  proclaimed  himself  emperor  of  the  French,  and 
probably  would  have  been  acknowledged  as  such  by  all  other 
princes.  To  a  man  so  vain  and  so  impatient,  so  accustomed  to 
command  and  to  intimidate,  this  suspension  of  his  favourite  plan 
\vas  a  considerable  disappointment,  and  not  a  little  increased  his 
bitter  and  irreconcilable  hatred  of  Great  Britain. 

Here,  as  well  as  in  foreign  countries,  the  multitude  pay  ho- 
mage only  to  Napoleone's  uninterrupted  prosperity  ;  without 
penetrating  or  considering  whether  it  be  the  consequence  of 
chance  or  of  well-digested  plans  ;  whether  he  owes  his  successes 
to  his  own  merit,  or  to  a  blind  fortune.  He  asserted,  in  his 
speech  to  the  constitutional  authorities,  immediately  after  hostili- 
ties had  been  commenced  with  England,  that  the  war  would  be  of 
short  duration,  and  he  firmly  believed  what  he  said.  Had  he  by 
his  gun-boats,  or  by  his  intrigues  or  threats,  been  enabled  to  ex- 
tort a  second  edition  of  the  paace  of  Amiens,  after  a  warfare  of 
some  few  months,  all  mouths  would  have  been  ready  to  exclaim, 
Oh  the  illustrious  warrior !  Oh  the  profound  politician  !  Now, 
after  three  ineffectual  campaigns  on  the  coast,  when  the  extrava- 
gance and  ambition  of  our  government  have  extended  the  conta- 
gion of  war  over  the  continent;  when  both  our  direct  offers  of 
peace  and  the  negotiations  and  mediations  of  our  allies  have 
been  declined  by,  or  proved  unavailing  with,  the  cabinet  of  St. 
James,  the  inconsistency,  the  ignorance,  and  the  littleness  of  the 
fortunate  great  man  seem  to  be  not  more  remembered  than  the 
outrages  and  encroachments  that  have  provoked  Austria  and  Rus- 
sia to  take  the  field.  Should  he  continue  victorious,  and  be  in  a 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  15. 

position  to  dictate  another  peace  of  Luneville,  which  probably 
will  be  followed  by  another  pacific  overture  to  or  from  England, 
mankind  will  again  be  ready  to  call  out,  "  Oh  the  illustrious 
warrior !  Oh  the  profound  politician  !  he  foresaw,  in  his  wis- 
dom; that  a  continental  war  was  necessary  to  terrify  or  to  subdue 
his  maritime  foe  ;  that  a  peace  with  England  could  only  be  ob- 
tained in  Germany  ;  and  that  this  war  must  be  excited  by  ex- 
tending the  power  of  France  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps. — 
Hence  his  coronation  as  king  of  Italy  ;  hence  his  incorporation 
of  Parma  and  Genoa  with  France ;  and  hence  his  donation  of 
Piombino  and  Lucca  to  his  brother-in-law,  Bacchiochi  1"  No- 
where in  history  have  I  read  of  men  of  sense  being  so  easily  led 
astray,  as  in  our  times,  by  confounding  fortuitous  events  with 
consequences  resulting  from  preconcerted  plans  and  well  organ- 
ized designs. 

Only  rogues  can  disseminate,  and  fools  believe,  that  the  dis- 
grace of  Moreau,  and  the  execution  of  the  Duke  d'Enghein,  of 
Pichegru  and  Georges,  were  necessary  as  footsteps  to  Buona- 
parte's imperial  throne  ;  and  that,  without  the  treachery  of 
Mehee  de  la  Touche,  and  the  conspiracy  he  pretended  to  have 
discovered,  France  would  still  have  been  ruled  by  a  First  Consul. 
It  is  indeed  true,  that  this  plot  is  to  be  counted  (as  the  imbecility 
of  Melas,  which  lost  the  battle  of  Marengo)  among  those  acci- 
dents presenting  themselves  a-propos  to  serve  the  favourite  of 
fortune  in  his  ambitious  views ;  but  without  it  he  would  equally 
have  been  hailed  an  emperor  of  the  French  in  May,  1 804.  When 
he  came  from  the  coast,  in  the  preceding  winter,  and  was  con- 
vinced of  the  impossibility  of  making  any  impression  on  the 
British  islands  with  his  flotilla,  he  convoked  his  confidential 
senators,  who  then,  with  Talleyrand,  settled  the  Senatus  Con- 
sultum,  which  appeared  five  months  afterwards.  Mehee's  cor- 
respondence with  Mr.  Drake  was  then  known  to  him  ;  but  he 
and  the  minister  of  police  were  both  unacquainted  with  the  re- 
sidence and  arrival  of  Pichegru  and  Georges  in  France,  and  of 
their  connexion  with  Moreau  ;  the  particulars  of  which  were  first 
disclosed  to  them  in  the  February  following,  when  Buonaparte 
had  been  absent  from  his  army  of  England  six  weeks.  The  as- 
sumption of  the  imperial  dignity  procured  him  another  decent. 


16  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

opportunity  of  offering  his  olive-branch  to  those  who  had  caused 
his  laurels  to  wither,  and  by  whom,  notwithstanding  his  abuse^ 
calumnies  and  menaces,  he  would  have  been  more  proud  to  be 
saluted  Emperor,  than  by  all  other  nations  upon  the  continent. 
His  vanity,  interest,  and  policy,  all  required  this  last  degree  of 
supremacy  and  elevation  at  that  period. 

Buonaparte  had  so  well  penetrated  the  weak  side  of  Moreau's 
character,  that,  although  he  could  not  avoid  doing  justice  to  this 
general's  military  talents  and  exploits,  he  neither  esteemed  him 
as  a  citizen,  nor  dreaded  him  as  a  rival.  Moreau  possessed  great 
popularity  ;  but  so  did  Dumourier  and  Pichegru  before  him  :  and 
yet  neither  of  them  had  found  adherents  enough  to  shake  those 
republican  governments  with  which  they  avowed  themselves 
openly  discontented,  and  against  which  they  secretly  plotted.  I 
heard  Talleyrand  say,  at  Madame  de  Montlausier's,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  fifty  persons :  "  Napoleone  Buonaparte  had  never  any 
tiling  to  apprehend  from  General  Moreau,  and  from  his  popu- 
larity, even  at  the  head  of  an  army.  Dumourier  too  was  at 
the  head  of  an  army,  when  he  revolted  against  the  National 
Convention ;  but  had  he  not  saved  himself  by  flight,  his  own 
troops  would  have  delivered  him  up  to  be  punished  as  a  traitor. 
Moreau,  and  his  pojndarifij,  could  only  be  dangerous  to  the  Buona- 
parte dynasty,  were  he  to  survive  Nafiolcone  ;  had  not  this  Empe- 
ror wisely  averted  this  danger."  From  this  official  declaration  of 
Napoleone's  confidential  minister  in  a  society  of  known  anti-im- 
perialists, I  draw  the  conclusion,  that  Moreau  will  never  more, 
during  the  present  reign,  return  to  France.  How  very  feeble, 
uncl  how  budly  advised  must  this  general  have  been,  when,  after 
his  condemnation  to  two  years  imprisonment,  he  accepted  of  a 
perpetual  exile ;  and  renounced  all  hopes  of  ever  again  entering 
his  own  country.  In  the  Temple,  or  in  any  other  prison,  if  he 
had  submitted  to  the  sentence  pronounced  against  him,  he  would 
have  caused  Buonaparte  more  uneasiness  than  when  at  liberty  ; 
and  been  more  a  point  to  rally  his  adherents  and  friends,  than 
when  at  his  palace  of  Grosbois  ;  because  compassion  and  pity 
must  have  invigorated  and  sharpened  their  feelings. 

If  report  be  true,  however,  he  did  not  voluntarily  exchange 
imprisonment  for  exile  j    racks  were  shown  him  ;   and  by  the 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  17 

act  of  banishment  was  placed  a  poisonous  draught.  This  report 
gains  considerable  credit,  when  it  is  remembered,  that  imme- 
diately after  his  condemnation,  Morcau  furnished  his  apartments 
in  the  Temple  in  a  handsome  manner,  so  as  to  be  lodged  well, 
if  not  comfortably,  with  his  wife  and  child,  whom,  it  is  said,  he 
was  not  permitted  to  see,  before  he  had  accepted  of  Buona- 
parte's proposal  of  transportation. 

It  may  be  objected  to  this  supposition,  that  the  man  in  power, 
who  did  not  care  about  the  barefaced  murder  of  the  Duke  d'Eng- 
hein,  and  the  secret  destruction  of  Pichegru,  could  neither  much 
hesitate,  nor  be  very  conscientious,  about  adding  Moreau  to 
the  number  of  his  victims.  True,  but  the  assassin  in  autho- 
rity is  also  generally  a  politician.  The  untimely  end  of  the  Duke 
d'Enghein  and  of  Pichegru  was  certainly  lamented  and  deplor- 
ed by  the  great  majority  of  the  French  people  ;  but  though  they 
had  many  who  pitied  their  fate,  but  few  had  any  relative  interest 
to  avenge  it ;  whilst  in  the  assassination  of  Moreau,  every  gene- 
ral, every  officer,  and  every  soldier  of  his  former  army,  might 
have  read  the  destiny  reserved  for  himself  by  that  chieftain,  who 
did  not  conceal  his  preference  of  those  who  had  fought  under  him. 
in  Italy  and  Egypt ;  and  his  mistrust  and  jealousy  of  those  who  had 
vanquished  under  Moreau  in  Germany  ;  numbers  of  whom  had 
already  perished  at  St.  Domingo,  or  in  the  other  colonies,  or 
were  dispersed  in  separate  and  distant  garrisons  of  the  mother 
country.  It  has  been  calculated,  that  of  eighty -four  generals, 
who  made,  under  Moreau,  the  campaign  of  1800,  and  who  sur« 
vived  the  peace  of  Luneville,  sixteen  had  been  killed  or  died  at 
St.  Domingo,  four  at  Guadaloupe,  ten  in  Cayenne,  nine  at  the 
Isle  de  France,  and  eleven  at  1'Isle  Reunion,  and  in  Madagascar. 
The  mortality  among  the  officers  and  men  has  been  in  proper- 
tion. 

An  anecdote  is  related  of  Pichegru,  which  does  honour  to  the 
memory  of  that  unfortunate  general.  Fouche  paid  him  a  visit 
in  prison  the  day  before  his  death,  and  offered  him  "  Buonaparte's 
commission  as  a  field  marshal,  and  a  diploma  as  a  grand  officer 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  provided  he  would  turn  informer  a= 
gainst  Moreau,  of  whose  treachery  against  himself,  in  1797-9 

€    3 


18  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

he  was  reminded.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  informed,  that, 
in  consequence  of  his  former  denials,  if  he  persisted  in  his  refrac- 
tory conduct,  he  should  never  more  appear  before  any  judge,  but 
that  the  affairs  of  state,  and  the  safety  of  his  country,  required 
that  he  should  be  privately  dispatched  in  his  gaol."  "  So,"  an* 
swered  this  virtuous  and  indignant  warrior,  "  you  will  only- 
spare  my  life,  upon  condition  that  I  prove  myself  unworthy  to 
live.  As  this  is  the  case,  my  choice  is  made  without  hesita- 
tion :  I  am  prepared  to  become  your  victim,  but  I  will  never  be 
numbered  among  your  accomplices.  Call  in  your  executioners  ; 
I  am  ready  to  die  as  I  have  lived,  a  man  of  honour  and  an  irre- 
proachable citizen."  Within  twenty-four  hours  after  this  an- 
swer, Pichegru  was  no  more. 

That  the  Duke  d'Enghein  was  not  shot  in  the  night  of  the 
2 1st  of  March,  1 804,  in  the  wood,  or  in  the  ditch  of  the  castle  of 
Vincennes,  is  admitted  even  by  government ;  but  who  really 
were  his  assassins  is  still  unknown.  Some  assert  that  he  was 
shot  by  the  grenadiers  of  Buonaparte's  Italian  guard  ;  others  say, 
by  a  detachment  of  the  gens  d'armes  d'Elite  ;  and  others  again, 
that  the  men  of  both  these  corps  refused  to  fire  ;  and  that  gene- 
ral Murat,  hearing  the  troops  murmur,  and  fearing  their  mutiny, 
was  himself  the  executioner  of  this  young  and  innocent  prince 
of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  by  riding  up  to  him,  and  blowing  oufc 
his  brains  with  a  pistol.  Certain  it  is,  that  Murat  was  the  first, 
and  Louis  Buonaparte  the  second  in  command  on  this  dreadful 
occasion. 


LETTER  V. 

Paris,   dugust,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THANKS  to  Talleyrand's  political  emigration,  our  govern- 
ment has  never  been  in  ignorance  of  the  characters  and  foibles 
of  the  leading  members  among  the  emigrants  in  England.  Otto, 
however,  finished  their  picture,  but  added  some  new  groups  to 
those  delineated  by  his  predecessor.  It  was  according  to  his 
plan  that  the  expedition  of  Mehee  de  la  Touche  was  undertaken^ 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD  19 

and  it  Was  in  following  his  instructions  that  the  campaign  of  this 
traitor  succeeded  so  well  in  Great  Britain. 

Under  the  ministry  of  Vergennes,  of  Montmorin,  and  of  De- 
lessart,  Mehee  had  been  employed  as  a  spy  in  Russia,  Sweden, 
and  Poland,  and  acquitted  himself  perfectly  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  masters.  By  some  accident  or  other,  Delessart  discovered, 
however,  in  December,  1791,  that  he  had,  while  pocketing  the 
money  of  the  cabinet  of  Versailles,  sold  Us  secrets  to  the  cabinet 
of  St.  Petersburg!!.  He,  of  course,  was  no  longer  trusted  as  a 
spy,  and  therefore  turned  a  Jacobin,  and  announced  himself  to 
Brissot  as  a  persecuted  patriot.  All  the  calumnies  against  this 
minister  in  Brissot's  daily  paper  Le  Patriot  Francois^  during 
January,  February,  and  March,  1792,  were  the  productions  of 
Mehee's  malicious  heart  and  able  pen.  Even  after  they  had  sent 
Delessart  a  state  prisoner  to  Orleans,  his  inveteracy  continued,, 
and  in  September  the  same  year,  he  went  to  Versailles  to  enjoy 
the  sight  of  the  murder  of  his  former  master.  Some  go  so  far 
as  to  say,  that  the  assassins  were  headed  by  this  monster,  who 
aggravated  cruelty  by  insult,  and  informed  the  dying  minister  of 
the  hands  that  stabbed  him,  and  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  a 
premature  death. 

To  these  and  other  infamous  and  barbarous  deeds,  Talleyrand  J 
was  not  a  stranger,  when  he  made  Mehee  his  secret  agent,  and 
entrusted  him  with  the  mission  to  England.  He  took,  therefore, 
such  steps,  that  neither  his  confidence  could  be  betrayed,  nor  his 
money  squandered.  Mehee  had  instructions  how  to  proceed  in 
Great  Britain,  but  he  was  ignorant  of  the  object  government  had 
in  view  by  his  mission  ;  and  though  large  sums  were  promised, 
if  successful,  and  if  he  gave  satisfaction  by  his  zeal  and  discre- 
tion ;  the  money  advanced  him  was  a  mere  trifle,  and  barely 
sufficient  to  keep  him  from  want.  He  was,  therefore,  really  dis- 
tressed when  he  fixed  upon  some  necessitous  and  greedy  emi- 
grants for  his  instruments  to  play  on  the  credulity  of  the  English 
ministers,  in  some  of  their  unguarded  moments.  Their  genero- 
sity in  forbearing  to  avenge  upon  the  deluded  French  exiles, 
the  slur  attempted  to  be  thrown  upon  their  official  capacity,  and 
the  ridicule  intended  to  be  cast  on  thtir  private  characters,  has 
been  much  approved  and  admired  here  by  all  liberal  minded 


20  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

persons ;  but  it  has  also  much  disappointed  Buonaparte  and 
Talleyrand,  who  expected  to  see  these  emigrants  driven  from 
the  only  asylum,  which  hospitality  has  not  refused  to  their  mis- 
fortunes and  misery. 

Mehee  had  been  promised,  by  Talleyrand,  double  the  amount 
of  the  sums  which  he  could  swindle  from  your  government ; 
but  though  he  did  more  mischief  to  your  country  than  was  ex- 
pected in  this  ;  and  though  he  proved,  that  he  had  pocketed 
upwards  of  ten  thousand  English  guineas,  the  wages  of  his  in- 
famy, when  he  hinted  about  the  recompense  he  expected  here, 
Durant,  Talleyrand's  chtfdu  bureaux,  advised  him,  as  a  friend, , 
not  to  remind  the  minister  of  his  presence  in  France,  as  Buona- 
parte never  pardoned  a  Septembrizer,  and  the  English  guineas 
he  possessed  might  be  claimed  and  seized,  as  national  property, 
to  compensate  some  of  the  sufferers  by  the  unjiro~ucked  war  with 
England.  In  vain  did  he  address  himself  to  his  fellow-labourer 
in  revolutionary  plots,  the  counsellor  of  state,  Real,  who  had  been 
the  intermedium  between  bim  and  Talleyrand,  when  he  was  first 
enlisted  among  the  secret  agents  :  instead  of  receiving  money  he 
heard  threats ;  and  therefore,  with  as  good  grace  as  he  could, 
he  made  the  best  of  his  disappointment ;  he  sported  a  carriage, 
kept  a  mistress,  went  to  gambling  houses,  and  is  now  in  a  fair 
way  to  be  reduced  to  the  statu  quo  before  his  brilliant  exploits  in 
Great  Britain. 

Real,  besides  the  place  of  a  counsellor  of  state,  occupies  also 
the  office  of  a  director  of  the  internal  police.  Having  some  dif- 
ference with  my  landlord,  I  was  summoned  to  appear  before 
him  at  the  prefecture  of  the  police.  My  friend,  M.  de  Sab-— r, 
formerly  a  counsellor  of  the  parliament  at  Rouen,  happened  to 
be  with  me  when  the  summons  was  delivered,  and  offered  to  ac- 
company me,  being  acquainted  with  Real.  Though  thirty  per- 
sons were  waiting  in  the  anti-chamber  at  our  arrival,  no  sooner 
was  my  friend's  name  announced,  than  we  were  admitted,  and  I 
obtained  not  only  more  justice  than  I  expected,  or  dared  to  claim, 
but  an  invitation  to  Madame  Real's  tea-party  the  same  evening. 
This  justice  and  this  politeness  surprised  me,  until,  my  friend 
showed  me  an  act  of  forgery,  in  his  possession,  committed  by 
Real,  in  1788,  when  an  advocate  of  the  parliament,  and  for  which 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  2i 

the   humanity  of  my  friend  alone  prevented  him  from  being 
struck  off  the  rolls,  and  otherwise  punished. 

As  I  conceived  my  usual  societies  and  coteries  could  not  ap- 
prove my  attendance  at  the  house  of  such  a  personage,  I  was  in- 
tent upon  sending  an  apology  to  Madame  Real.  My  friend,  how- 
ever, assured  me,  that  I  should  meet  in  her  saloon  persons  of  all 
classes  and  of  all  ranks  ;  and  many  I  little  expected  to  see  asso- 
ciating together.     I  went  late,  and  found  the  assembly  very  nu- 
merous :  at  the  upper  part  of  the  hall  were  seated  princesses 
Joseph  and  Louis  Buonaparte,  with  Madame  Fouche,  Madame 
Roederer ;  the  ci-devant  Duchess  de  Fleury,  and  Marchioness  de 
Clermont.     They  were  conversing  with  M.  Mathew  de  Mont- 
morency  ;  the  contractor  (a  ci-devant  lacquey)  Collot ;  the  ci-dc- 
vant  Duke  Fitzjames,  and  the  legislator  Mt.rtin,  a  ci-dcvant  por- 
ter :  several  groups  in  the  several  apartments  were  composed  of 
a  similar  heterogeneous  mixture  of  ci-devant  valets  ;  of  ci-devant 
princesses,  marchionesses,  countesses  and  baronesses,  and  of  cz- 
de-vant  chamber-maids,  mistresses,  and  poissardes.     Round    a 
gambling  table,  by  the  side  of  the  ci-dcvant  Bishop  of  Autun, 
Talleyrand,  sat  Madame  Hounguenin,  whose  husband,  a  ci-devant 
shoe-black,  has,  by  the  purchase  of  national  property,  made  a  for- 
tune of  nine  millions  of  livres,  375,000/.     Opposite  them  were 
seated  the  ci-dc~uant  Prince  de  Chalais,  and  the  present  Prince 
Cambaceres,  with  the  ci-dcvant  Countess  de  Beauvais,  and  Ma- 
dame Fauve,  the  daughter  of  a  fish-woman,  and  the  wife  of  a 
tribune,  a  ci-devant  barber.  In  another  room  the  Bavarian  minis- 
ter Cetto  was  conferring  with  the  spy  Mehee  de  la  Touche  ;  but 
observed  at  a  distance  by  Fouche's  secretary,  Desmarets,  the  son 
of  a  tailor  at  Fontainbleau  and  for  years  a  known  police  spy.—— 
When  I  was  just  going  to  retire,  the  handsome  Madame  Gillot, 
and  her  sister,  Madame  de  Soubray,  joined  me.   You  have  per- 
haps known   them  in  England,  where,  before  their  marriage, 
they  resided  for  five  years  with  their  parents,  the  Marquis  and 
Marchioness  de  Courtin  ;  and  were  often  admired  by  the  loung- 
ers in  Bond-street.     The  one  married  for  money,  Gillot,  a  ci-de- 
vant drummer  in  the  French  guards,  but  who,  since  the  Revo» 
lution,  has,  as  a  general,  made  a  large  fortune  ;  and  the  other 
united  herself  to  a  ci-devant  Abbe,  from  love  ;  but  b9th  are  now 


22  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

divorced  from  their  husbands ;  who  passed  them  without  any 
notice  while  they  were  chatting  with  me.  I  was  handing  Ma- 
dame Gillot  to  her  carriage,  when  from  the  staircase,  Madame 
de  Soubray  called  to  us  not  to  quit  her,  as  she  was  pursued  by  a 
man  whom  she  detested  and  wished  to  avoid.  We  had  hardly 
turned  round,  when  Mehee  offered  her  his  arm  ;  and  she  ex- 
claimed with  indignation,  "  How  dare  you,  infamous  wretch,  ap- 
proach me,  when  I  have  forbid  you  ever  to  speak  to  me.  Had 
you  been  reduced  to  become  a  highwayman  or  a  house-breaker, 
I  must  have  pitied  your  infamy  ;  but  a  spy  is  a  villain  who  ag- 
gravates guilt  by  cowardice  and  baseness  ;  and  can  inspire  no 
noble  soul  with  any  other  sentiment  but  abhorrence,  and  the  most 
sovereign  contempt."  Without  ever  being  disconcerted,  Mehee 
silently  returned  to  the  company,  amidst  bursts  of  laughter  from 
fifty  servants,  and  as  many  masters,  waiting  for  their  carriages. 
M.  de  Cetto  was  among  the  latter,  but  though  we  all  fixed  our 
eyes  stedfastly  upon  him,  no  alteration  could  be  seen  upon  his 
diplomatic  countenance :  his  face  must  surely  be  made  of  brass, 
or  his  heart  of  marble. 


LETTER    VI. 

Pari^  August,    1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  day  on  which  Madame  Napoleone  Buonaparte  was 
elected  an  Empress  of  the  French,  by  the  constitutional  authori- 
ties of  her  husband's  empire,  was,  contradictory  as  it  may  seem, 
one  of  the  most  uncomfortable  in  her  life.  After  the  show  and 
ceremony  of  the  audience  and  of  the  drawing-room  were  over^ 
she  passed  it  entirely  in  tears,  in  her  library,  where  her  hus- 
band shut  her  up  and  confined  her. 

The  discipline  of  the  Court  of  St.  Cloud  is  as  singular  as  its 
composition  is  unique.  It  is,  by  the  regulation  of  Napoleone, 
entirely  military.  From  the  .  Empress  to  her  lowest  chamber- 
maid, from  the  Emperor's  first  aide-de-camp  down  to  his  young- 
est page,  any  slight  offence  or  negligence  is  punished  with  con- 
finement, either  private  or  public.  In  the  former  case,  the  cul« 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  23 

prits  are  shut  up  in  their  own  apartments  ;  but  in  the  latter,  they 
are  ordered  into  one  of  the  small  rooms,  constructed  in  the  dark 
galleries  at  the  Thuileries  and  St.  Cloud,  near  the  kitchens ; 
where  they  are  guarded,  day  and  night,  by  sentries,  who  answer 
for  their  persons^  and  that  nobody  visits  them. 

When,  on  the  28th  of  March,  1804,  the  senate  had  determined 
on  offering  Buonaparte  the  Imperial  dignity,  he  immediately 
gave  his  wife  full  powers,  with  orders  to  form  her  household  of 
persons  who,  from  birth,  and  from  their  principles,  might  be 
worthy,  and  could  be  trusted,  to  encompass  the  Imperial  couple. 
She  consulted  Madame  Remusat,  who  in  her  turn  consulted  her 
friend  de  Segur,  who  also  consulted  his  bonne  amie,  Madame  de 
Montbrune.  This,  lady  determined,  that  if  Buonaparte  and  his 
wife  were  desirous  to  be  served,  or  waited  on,  by  persons  above 
them  by  ancestry  and  honour,  they  should  pay  liberally  for 
such  sacrifices.  She  was  not,  therefore,  idle,  but  wishing  to 
profit  herself  by  the  pride  of  upstart  vanity,  she  had  at  first  mere- 
ly reconnoitred  the  ground,  or  made  distant  overtures  to  those 
families  of  the  ancient  French  nobility  who  had  been  ruined  by 
the  Revolution,  and  whose  minds  she  expected  to  have  found  on 
a  level  with  their  circumstances.  These,  however,  either  sus- 
pecting her  intent  and  her  views,  or  preferring  honest  poverty 
to  degrading  and  disgraceful  splendour,  had  started  objections 
which  she  was  not  prepared  to  encounter.  Thus  the  time  pass- 
ed away  ;  and  when,  on  the  1  8th  of  the  following  May,  the  sen- 
ate proclaimed  Napoleone  Buonaparte  Emperor  of  the  French, 
not  a  chamberlain  was  ready  to  attend  him,  nor  a  maid  of  hon- 
our prepared  to  wait  on  his  wife. 

In  the  morning  of  the  20th  of  Msy,  the  day  fixed  for  the  con- 
stitutional republican  authorities  to  present  their  homage  as  mb- 
jects,  Napoleone  asked  his  Josephine,  who  were  the  persons,  of 
both  sexes,  she  had  engaged,  according  to  his  carte  blanche  given 
her,  as  necessary  and  as  unavoidable  decorations  of  the  drawing- 
room  of  an  Emperor  and  Empress,  as  thrones  and  as  canopies 
of  state.  She  referred  him  to  Madame  Remusat,  who,  though 
but  half  dressed,  was  instantly  ordered  to  appear  before  him. 
This  lady  avowed  that  his  grand  muster  of  the  ceremonies,  de  Se- 
gur, had  been  entrusted  by  her  with  the  whole  arrangement,  but 


24  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

that  she*  feared  that  he  had  not  yet  been  able  to  complete  the  full 
establishment  of  the  Imperial  court.  The  aid-de-camp  Rapp 
\vas  then  dispatched  after  de  Segur,  who,  as  usual,  presented  him- 
self, smiling  and  cringing.  "  Give  me  the  list,"  said  Napoleone, 
"  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  you  have  no  doubt  engaged  for  our 
household."  "  May  it  please  your  Majesty,  answered  de  Segur, 
(trembling  with  fear)  "  I  humbly  supposed  that  they  were  not  re- 
quisite, before  the  day  of  your  Majesty's  coronation."  "  You 
supposed  1"  retorted  Napoleone,  "  how  dare  you  suppose  diffe- 
rently from  our  commands  ?  Is  the  Emperor  of  the  Great  Nation 
not  to  be  compassed  with  a  more  numerous  retinue,  or  with 
more  lustre  than  a  First  Consul  ?  Do  you  not  see  the  immense 
difference  between  the  sovereign  monarch  of  an  empire,  and  the 
citizen  chief  magistrate  of  a  commonwealth  ?  Are  there  not 
starving  nobles  in  my  empire,  enough  to  furnish  all  the  courts 
in  Europe  with  attendants,  courtiers,  and  valets?  Do  you  not  be- 
lieve that  with  a  nod — with  a  single  nod,  I  might  have  them  all 
prostrated  before  my  throne  ?  What  can  then  have  occasioned 
this  impertinent  delay  ?  "  Sire  !"  answered  de  Segur,  "  it  is  not 
the  want  of  numbers,  but  the  difficulty  of  the  choice  among 
them.  I  will  never  recommend  a  single  individual,  upon  whom 
I  cannot  depend  ;  or  who,  on  some  future  day,  may  expose  me 
to  the  "greatest  of  all  evils,  the  displeasure  of  my -prince." — 
"  But,"  continued  Napolecne,  "  what  is  to  be  done  to-day,  that  I 
may  augment  the  number  of  my  suite,  and  by  it  impose  upon 
the  gaping  multitude,  and  the  attending  deputations  ?" — "  Com- 
mand," said  de  Segur,  "  all  the  officers  of  your  Majesty's  staff, 
and  of  the  staff  of  the  Governor  of  Paris,  General  Murat,  to  sur- 
round your  Majesty's  sacred  person,  and  order  them  to  accoutre 
themselves  in  the  most  shining  and  splendid  manner  possible. — 
The  presence  of  so  many  military  men  will  also,  in  a  political 
point  of  view,  be  useful.  It  will  lessen  the  pretensions  of  the  con- 
stituted authorities,  by  telling  them  indirectly  :  It  is  not  to  your 
Senatus  Consultum,  to  your  decrees,  or  to  your  votes,  that  I  am 
indebted  for  my  present  sovereignty  :  I  owe  it  exclusively  to  my 
own  merit  and  valour,  and  to  the  valour  of  my  brave  officers  and 
men,  to  whose  arms  I  trust  more  than  to  your  counsels." 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  25 

This  advice  obtained  Napoleone's  entire  approbation,  and  was 
followed.  De  Segur  was  permitted  to  retire,  but  when  Madame 
Remusat  made  a  courtesy  also  to  leave  the  room,  she  was  stop- 
ped with  his  terrible,  aux  arrcts  !  and  left  under  the  care  and 
responsibility  of  his  aide-de-camp  Le  Brun,  who  saw  her  safe 
into  her  room,  at  the  door  of  which  he  placed  two  grenadiers. 
Napoleone  then  went  out,  ordering  his  wife,  at  her  peril,  to  be 
in  time  ready  and  brilliantly  dressed,  for  the  drawing-room. 

Dreading  the  consequences  of  her  husband's  wrath,  Madame 
Napoleone  was  not  only  punctual,  but  so  elegantly  and  tastefully 
decorated  with  jewels  and  ornaments,  that  even  those  of  her 
enemies  or  rivals  who  refused  her  beauty,  honour,  and  virtue, 
allowed  her  taste  and  dignity.  She  thought  that  even  in  the 
regards  of  Napoleone,  she  read  a  tacit  approbation.  When  all 
the  troublesome  bustle  of  the  morning  was  gone  through,  and 
when  senators,  legislators,  tribunes,  and  prefects,  had  compli- 
mented her  as  a  model  of  female  perfection,  on  a  signal  from 
her  husband,  she  accompanied  him  in  silence,  through  six  dif- 
ferent apartments,  before  he  came  to  her  library,  where  he  sur- 
lily ordered  her  to  enter,  and  to  remain  until  further  orders. — 
"  What  have  I  done,  Sire  !  to  deserve  such  treatment  ?"  ex- 
claimed she  trembling. — "  If,"  answered  Napoleone,  "  Madame 
Remusat,  your  favourite,  has  made  a  fool  of  you,  this  is  only 
to  teach  you,  that  you  shall  not  make  a  fool  of  me.  Had  not 
ds  Segur,  fortunately  for  him,  had  the  ingenuity  to  extricate  us 
from  the  dilemma  into  which  my  confidence  and  dependence  on 
you  had  brought  me,  I  should  have  made  a  fine  figure,  indeed, 
on  the  first  day  of  my  Emperorship. — Have  patience,  Madame, 
you  have  plenty  of  books  to  divert  you,  but  you  must  remain 
where  you  are,  until  I  am  inclined  to  release  you."  So  saying, 
Napoleone  locked  the  door,  and  put  the  key  in  his  pocket. 

It  was  near  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  she  was  thus 
shut  up.  Remembering  the  recent  flattery  of  her  courtiers,  and 
comparing  it  with  the  unfeeling  treatment  of  her  husband,  she 
found  herself  so  much  the  more  unfortunate,  as  the  expressions 
of  the  former  were  regarded  by  her  as  praise  due  to  her  merit, 
while  the  unkindness  of  the  latter  was  unavailingly  resented  as 
the  undeserved  oppression  of  a  capricious  despot. 


6  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Business,  or  perhaps  malice,  made  Napoleone  forget  to  send 
her  any  dinner  ;  and  when,  at  eight  o'clock,  his  brothers  and 
sisters  came  according  to  invitation  to  take  tea,  he  said  coldly, 
"  A-propos,  I  forgot  it,  my  wife  has  not  dined  yet ;  she  is  busy, 
I  suppose,  in  her  philosophical  meditations  in  her  study."  Ma- 
dame Louis  Buonaparte,  her  daughter,  flew  directly  towards  the 
study,  and  her  mother  could  scarcely,  for  her  tears,  inform  her 
that  she  was  a  prisoner,  and  that  her  husband  was  the  gaoler. — 
"  Oh,  Sire  !"  said  Madame  Louis,  returning,  u  even  this  re- 
rnarltable  day  is  a  day  of  mourning  for  my  poor  mother!"— 
**  She  deserves  worse,"  answered  Napoleone,  u  but,  for  your 
sake,  she  shall  be  released  ;  here  is  the  key,  let  her  out." 

Madame  Napoleone  was,  however,  not  in  a  situation  to  wish 
to  appear  before  her  envious  brothers  and  sisters-in-law.  Her 
eyes  were  so  swollen  with  crying,  that  she  could  hardly  see  ; 
and  her  tears  had  stained  those  imperial  robes,  which  the  un- 
thinking and  inconsiderate,  no  doubt,  believed  a  certain  preser- 
vative against  sorrow  and  affliction.  At  nine  o'clock,  however, 
another  aide-de-camp  of  her  husband  presented  himself,  and  gave 
her  the  choice,  either  to  accompany  him  back  to  the  study,  or 
to  join  the  family  party  of  the  Buonapartes. 

In  deploring  her  mother's  situation,  Madame  Louis  Buona- 
parte informed  her  former  governess,  Madame  Cam — n,  of 
these  particulars,  which  I  heard  her  relate  at  Madame  de  M — r's, 
almost  verbatim  a's  I  report  them  to  you.  Such,  and  other 
scenes  nearly  of  the  same  description,  are  neither  rare  nor  sin- 
gular, in  the  most  singular  court  that  ever  existed  in  civilized 
Europe. 


LETTER  VII. 

Paris j  August,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

THOUGH  government  suffer  a  religious,  or  rather  anti-religi- 
ous liberty  of  the  press,  the  authors  who  libel  or  ridicule  the  Chris- 
tian, particularly  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  are  excluded  from 
all  prospect  of  advancement,  or,  if  in  place  are  not  trusted  or  liked. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  :r 

Cardinal  Caprara,  the  nuncio  of  the  Pope,  proposed  last  year,  in  a 
long  memorial,  the  same  severe  restrictions  on  the  discussions  or 
publications  in  religious  matters,  as  were  already  ordered  in  those 
concerning  politics.  But  both  Buonaparte,  and  his  minister  in 
the  affairs  of  the  church,  Portalis,  refused  the  introduction  of 
what  they  called  a  tyranny  on  the  conscience.  Caprara  then  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  ex-bishop  Talleyrand,  who  on  this  occa- 
sion was  more  explicit  than  he  generally  is.  "  Buonaparte,"  said 
he,  «  rules  not  only  over  a  fickle,  but  a  gossiping  (bward)  peo- 
ple, wnom  he  has  prudently  forbidden  all  conversation  and 
writing  concerning  government,  or  affairs  of  state.  They  would 
soon  (accustomed  as  they  are,  since  the  Revolution,  to  verbal 
and  written  debates,)  be  tired  of  talking  about  fine  weather  or 
about  the  opera.  To  occupy  them  and  their  attention,  some 
ample  subject  of  diversion  was  necessary,  and  religion  was  sur- 
rendered to  them  at  discretion  ;  because,  enlightened  as  the  world 
now  is,  even  atheists,  or  Christian  fanatics,  can  do  but  little  harm 
to  society.  They  may  spend  rivers  of  ink,  but  they  will  be  una- 
ble to  shed  a  drop  of  blood." — "  True,"  answered  the  Cardinal, 
"  but  only  to  a  certain  degree.  The  licentiousness  of  the  press, 
with  regard  to  religious  matters,  does  it  not  also  furnish  infi- 
delity with  new  arms  to  injure  the  faith  ?  and  have  not  the  hor- 
rors from  which  France  has  just  escaped,  proved  the  danger  and 
evil  consequences  of  irreligion  ;  and  the  necessity  of  encou- 
raging and  protecting  Christianity  ?  By  the  recal  of  the  clergy, 
and  by  the  religious  concordat,  Buonaparte  has  showed  himself 
convinced  of  this  truth."  "  So  he  is,"  interrupted  Talleyrand, 
"but  he  abhors  intoleration  and  persecution  (not  in  politics). 
I  shall,  however,  to  please  your  Eminence,  lay  the  particulars 
of  your  conversation  before  him." 

Sometime  afterwards,  when  Talleyrand  and  Buonaparte  must- 
have  agreed  about  some  new  measure,  to  indirectly  chastise  im- 
pious writers,  the  senators,  Garat,  Jaucourt,  Rrederer,  and  De- 
meunier,  four  of  the  members  of  the  senatorial  commission  of 
the  liberty  of  the  press,  were  sent  for,  and  remained  closeted 
with  Napoleone,  his  minister  Portalis,  and  Cardinal  Caprara, 
for  two  hours.  What  was  determined  on  this  occasion  has  not 
transpired,  as  even  the  Cardinal,  wiio  is  not  the  most  discreet 


28  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

person,  when  provoked,  and  his  religious  zeal  gets  the  better  of 
his  political  prudence,  has  remained  silent,  though  seemingly 
contented. 

Two  rather  insignificant  authors,  of  the  name  of  Varennes 
and  Beaujou,  who  published  some  scandalous  libels  on  Christian- 
ity, have  since  been  taken  up,  and  after  some  months  imprison- 
ment in  the  Temple,  been  condemned  to  transportation  to 
Cayenne  for  life  ;  not  as  infidels  and  atheists,  but  as  conspirators 
against  the  state,  in  consequence  of  some  unguarded  expressions, 
which  prejudice  or  ill-will  alone  would  judge  connected  with  poli- 
tics. Nothing  is  now  permitted  to  be  printed  against  religion, 
but  with  the  author's  name  ;  but  by  affixing  his  name,  he  may 
abuse  the  worship  and  gospel  as  much  as  he  pleases.  Since  the 
example  of  severity  alluded  to  above,  however,  this  practice  is 
on  the  decline.  Even  Pigault  Le  Biun,  a  popular  but  immoral 
novel  writer,  narrowly  escaped  lately  a  trip  to  Cayenne,  for  one 
of  his  blasphemous  publications  ;  and  owes  to  the  protection  of 
Madame  Murat,  exclusively,  that  he  was  not  sent  to  keep  Va- 
rennes and  Beaujou  company.  Some  years  ago,  when  Madame 
Murat  was  neither  so  great  nor  so  rich  as  at  present,  he  presented 
her  with  a  copy  of  his  works,  and  she  has  been  not  only  unfashion- 
able enough  to  remember  the  compliment,  but  wished  to  return 
it,  by  nominating  him  her  private  secretary  ;  which,  however, 
the  veto  of  Napoleone  prevented. 

Of  Napoleone  Buonaparte's  religious  sentiments,  opinions  are 
not  divided  in  France.  The  influence  over  him,  of  the  petty,  su- 
perstitious, Cardinal  Caprara,  is  therefore  inexplicable.  This 
prelate  has  forced  from  him  assent  to  transactions  which  had 
been  refused  both  to  his  mother  and  his  brother  Joseph,  who 
now  often  employ  the  Cardinal  with  success,  where  they  either 
tlare  not  or  will  not  show  themselves.  It  is  true,  his  Eminence 
is  not  easily  rebuked,  but  returns  to  the  charge  unabashed  by 
new  repulses :  and  he  obtains  by  teasing  more  than  by  persua- 
sion ;  but  a  man  by  whom  Buonaparte  suffers  himself  to  be  teas- 
ed with  impunity  is  no  insignificant  favourite,  particularly  when, 
like  this  Cardinal,  he  unites  cunning  with  devotion,  craft  with 
superstition  ;  and  is  us  accessible  to  corruption  as  tormented  by 
ambition. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  29 

As  most  ecclesiastical  promotions  passed  through  his  pure 
and  disinterested  hands,  Madame  Napoleone,  Talleyrand,  an:l 
Portalis,  who  also  wanted  douceurs  for  their  extraordinary  ex- 
penses, united  together  last  spring*  to  remove  him  from  France, 
and  Napoleone  was  cajoled  to  nominate  him  a  grand  almoner  of 
the  kingdom  of  Italy  ;  and  the  Cardinal  set  cut  for  Milan.  He 
-was,  however,  artful  enough  to  convince  his  Sovereign  of  the 
propriety  of  having  his  grand  almoner  by  his  side ;  and  he  is 
therefore  obliged  to  this  intrigue  of  his  enemies,  that  he  now  dis- 
poses of  the  benefices  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  French  empire. 

During  the  Pope's  residence  in  this  capital  his  Holiness  often 
made  use  of  Cardinal  Caprara  in  his  secret  negotiations  with 
Buonaparte  ;  and  whatever  advantages  were  obtained  by  the 
Roman  Pontiff  for  the  Galliran  church,  his  Eminence  almost 
extorted  ;  for  he  never  desisted,  where  his  interest  or  pride  were 
concerned,  till  he  had  succeeded.  It  is  said  that  one  day  last 
January,  after  having  been  for  hours  exceedingly  teasing  and 
troublesome,  Buonaparte  lost  his  patience,  and  was  going  to  treat 
his  Eminence  as  he  frequently  does  his  relatives,  his  ministers 
and  counsellors,  that  is  to  say,  to  kick  him  from  his  presence  ; 
but  suddenly  recollecting  himself,  he  said,  "  Cardinal,  remain 
here  in  my  closet  until  my  return,  when  I  shall  have  more  time 
to  listen  to  what  you  have  to  relate."  It  was  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  a  day  of  great  military  audience  and  grand  review. 
In  going  out  he  put  the  key  in  his  pocket,  and  told  the  guards 
in  his  and- chamber  to  pay  no  attention,  if  they  should  hear  any 
noise  in  his  closet. 

It  was  dark  before  the  review  was  over,  and  Buonaparte  had 
a  large  party  to  dinner.  When  his  guests  had  retired,  he  went 
into  his  wife's  drawing  room,  where  one  of  the  Pope's  chamber- 
lains waited  on  him,  witfi  the  information,  that  his  Holiness  was 
much  alarmed  about  the  safety  of  Cardinal  Caprara,  of  whom  no 
account  could  be  obtained,  even  by  the  assistance  of  the  police, 
to  which  application  had  been  made,  since  his  Eminence  had  so 
suddenly  disappeared.  u  Oh  !  how  absent  I  am  !"  answered  Na- 
poleone, as  with  surprise  ;  "  I  entirely  forgot  that  I  left  the  Cardi- 
nal in  my  closet  this  morning  :  I  will  go  myself,  and  make  an. 


30  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

apology  for  my  blunder."  His  Eminence,  quite  exhausted,  was 
found  fast  asleep  ;  but  no  sooner  was  lie  a  little  recovered,  than 
he  interrupted  Buonaparte's  affected  apology  with  the  repetition 
of  the  demand  he  hud  made  in  the  morning  ;  and  so  well  was  Na- 
poleone  pleased  with  him,  for  neglecting  his  personal  inconve- 
nience, only  to  occupy  himself  with  the  affairs  of  his  Sovereign, 
that  he  consented  to  what  was  asked,  and  in  laying  his  hand 
upon  the  shoulders  of  the  prelate,  said  :  "  Faithful  minister  !  were 
every  prince  so  well  served  as  your  Sovereign  is  by  you,  many 
evils  might  be  prevented,  and  much  good  effected."  The  same 
evening  Duroc  brought  him  as  a  present,  a  snuff-box  with  Buo- 
naparte's portrait,  set  round  with  diamonds,  worth  one  thousand 
Louis  d'ors.  The  adventures  of  this  day  certainly  did  not  lessen 
his  Eminence  in  favour  of  Napoleone  or  of  Pius  VII. 

Last  November,  some  not  entirely  unknown  persons  intended 
to  amuse  themselves  at  the  Cardinal's  expense.  At  seven  o'clock 
one  evening,  a  young  Abbe  presented  himself  at  the  Cardinal's 
house,  hotel  de  Montmorin,  rue  Plmnet,  as  by  appointment  of  his 
Eminence ;  and  was  by  his  secretary  ushered  into  the  study, 
and  asked  to  wait  there.  Hardly  half  an  hour  afterwards,  two 
persons,  pretending  to  be  agents  of  the  police,  arrived  just  as  the 
Cardinal's  carriage  had  stopped.  They  informed  him,  that  the 
woman  introduced  into  his  house  in  the  dress  of  an  Abbe  was  con- 
nected with  a  gang  of  thieves  and  house-breakers,  and  demand- 
ed his  permission  to  arrest  her.  He  protested  that,  except  the- 
wife  of  the  porter,  no  woman  in  any  dress  whatever  could  be  in 
Lis  house,  and  that  to  convince  themselves,  they  were  very  wel- 
come to  accompany  his  valet-de-chambre  into  every  room  they 
wished  to  see.  To  the  great  surprise  of  his  servant,  a  very  pretty 
girl  was  found  in  the  bed  of  his  Eminence's  bed-chamber,  which 
joined  his  study ;  who,  though  the  pretended  police  agents  in- 
sisted on  her  getting  up,  refused,  under  pretence  that  she  was 
there  waiting  for  her  If  on  amie,ihe  Cardinal.  His  Eminence  was  no 
sooner  told  of  this,  than  he  shut  the  gate  of  his  house,  after  send- 
ing his  secretary  to  the  commissary  of  police  of  the  section.  In 
the  meantime,  both  the  police  agents  and  the  girl  entreated  him 
to  let  them  out,  as  the  whole  was  merely  a  badinage;  but  he  re- 
snained  inflexible,  and  they  were  all  three  curried  by  the  real  po- 


GOURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  Si 

iice  commissary  to  prison.  Upon  a  complaint  made  by  his  Emi- 
nence to  Buonaparte,  the  police  minister  Fouche,  received  orders 
to  have  those  who  had  dared  thus  to  violate  the  sacred  character 
of  the  representative  of  the  holy  Pontiff,  immediately  and  without 
further  ceremony  transported  to  Cayenne.  The  Cardinal  demand- 
ed, and  obtained  a  /traces -verbal  of  what  had  occurred,  and  of  the 
sentence  of  the  culprits,  to  be  laid  before  his  Sovereign,  As  Eu- 
genius  de  Beuharnois  interested  himself  so  much  for  the  indi- 
viduals involved  in  this  affair,  as  both  to  implore  Buonaparte's 
pardon  and  the  Cardinal's  interference  for  them,  many  were  in- 
clined to  believe  that  he  was  in  the  secret,  if  not  the  contriver  of 
this  unfortunate  joke.  This  supposition  gained  credit,  when,  after 
all  his  endeavours  to  save  them  proved  vain,  he  sent  them  72,000 
livres,  3000/.  to  Rochfort,  thut  they  might,  on  their  arrival  at 
Cayenne  be  able  to  buy  a  plantation.  He  procured  them  also 
letters  of  recommendation  to  the  governor,  Victor  Hughes,  to  be 
treated  differently  from  other  transported  persons. 


LETTER  VIII. 

Paris,    August,   1805. 

MY    LORD, 

I  WAS  particularly  attentive  in  observing  the  countenances 
and  demeanour  of  the  company,  at  the, last  levee  which  Madame 
Napoleone  Buonaparte  held,  previous  to  her  departure  with  her 
husband,  to  meet  the  Pope  at  Fontainebleau.  I  had  heard  from 
good  authority, "  to  those  whose  propensities  were  known,  Duroc's 
information,  that  the  Empress  was  visible,  was  accompanied  with 
a  kind  of  admonitory  or  courtly  hint,  tnat  the  strictest  decency  in 
dress  and  manners,  and  a  conversation  chaste,  and  rather  of  an  un- 
usually modest  turn,  would  be  highly  agreeable  to  their  Sove- 
reigns ;  in  consideration  of  the  solemn  occasion  of  a  Sovereign 
Pontiff's  arrival  in  France ;  an  occurrence  that  had  not  happen- 
ed for  centuries,  and  probably  would  not  happen  for  centuries  to 
come."  I  went  early,  and  was  well  rewarded  for  my  punctuality. 

There  came  the  senator  Fouche,  handing  his  amiable  and  chaste 
spouse,  walking  with  us  much  gravity  as  formerly,  when  a  friar, 


S2  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

he  marched  in  procession.  Then  presented  themselves  the  sena- 
tors Sieyes  and  Roederer,  with  an  air  as  composed,  as  if  the  for- 
mer had  still  been  an  Abbe,  and  the  confessor  of  the  latter.  Next 
came  Madame  Murat,  whom  three  hours  before  I  had  seen  in 
the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  in  all  the  disgusting  display  of  fashionable 
nakedness,  now  clothed  and  covered  to  her  chin.  She  was  follow- 
ed by  the  pious  Madame  Le  Clerc,  now  Princess  Borghese,  who 
was  sighing  deeply  and  loudly.  After  her  cam  e  limping  the  godly 
Talleyrand,  dragging  his/mn?  moiety  by  his  side,  both  with  down- 
cast and  edifying  looks  ;  the  Christian  patriots  Gravina  and  Lima  ; 
Dreyer  and  Beust,  Dalberg  and  Cetto,  Malsburgh  and  Pappen- 
heim,  with  the  Catholic  Schimmelpennink,  and  Mahomed-Sayd- 
Halel-Effendy,  all  presented  themselves  as  penitent  sinners  im- 
ploring absolutions,  after  undergoing  mortifications. 

But  it  would  become  tedious  and  merely  a  repetition,  were  I 
to  depict  separately  the  figures  and  characters  of  all  the  person- 
ages at  this  politico-comical  masquerade.  Their  conversation  was, 
however,  more  uniform,  more  contemptible,  and  more  laughable, 
than  their  accoutrements  and  grimaces  were  ridiculous.  To  judge 
from  what  they  said,  they  belonged,  no  longer  to  this  world  ;  all 
tii  :ir  thoughts  were  in  heaven,  and  they  considered  themselves 
either  on  the  borders  of  eternity,  or  on  the  eve  of  the  clay  of  the 
last  judgment.  The  truly  devout  Madame  Napoleone,  spoke 
with  rapture  of  martyrs  and  miracles,  of  the  mass  and  of  the 
vespers,  of  agnuses  and  relics  of  Christ  her  Saviour,  and  of  Pius 
VII.  his  vicar:  had  not  her  enthusiasm  been  interrupted  by  the 
enthusiastic  commentaries  of  her  mother-in-law,  1  saw  every 
mouth  open,  ready  to  cry  out  as  soon  as  she  had  finished,  Amen  ! 
Amen !  Amen ! 

Napoleone  had  placed  himself  between  the  old  'Cardinal  de 
Bellois  and  the  not  young  Cardinal  Bernier,  so  as  to  prevent  the 
approach  of  any  profane  sinner,  or  unrepentant  infidel.  Round 
him  and  their  clerical  chiefs,  all  the  curates  and  grand  vicars, 
almoners  and  chaplains  of  the  court,  and  the  chaplains  of  the 
Princes,  Princesses,  and  grand  officers  of  state,  had  formed  a 
kind  of  cordon.  "  Had,"  said  the  young  General  Kellerman  to 
me,  "  Buonaparte  always  been  encompassed  by  troops  of  this  de- 
scription, he  might  now  have  sung  hymns  as  a  saint  in  heavep* 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  33- 

but  he  would  never  have  reigned  as  an  Emperor  upon  earth."  This 
indiscreet  remark  was  heard  by  Louis  Buonaparte,  and  on  the  next 
morning  Kellerman  received  orders  to  join  the  army  in  Hanover, 
where  he  was  put  under  the  command  of  a  general  younger  than 
himself.  He  would  have  been  still  more  severely  punished,  had 
not  his  father  the  senator,  General  Kellerman,  been  in  such  great 
favour  at  the  court  of  St.  Cloud,  and  so  much  protected  by  Du- 
roc,  who  had  made,  in  1792,  his  first  campaign  under  this  officer, 
then  commander  in  chief  of  the  army  of  the  Ardennes. 

When  this  devout  assembly  separated,  which  was,  by  courtesy, 
an  hour  earlier  than  usual,  I  expected  every  moment  to  hear  a 
chorus  of  horse-laughs,  because  I  clearly  perceived  that  all  of 
them  were  tired  of  their  assumed  parts ;  and  with  me  inclined 
to  be  gay  at  the  expense  of  their  neighbours.  But  they  all  re- 
membered also  that  they  were  watched  by  spies,  and  that  an  im- 
prudent look,  or  an  indiscreet  word,  gaiety  instead  of  gravity, 
noise  when  silence  was  commanded,  might  be  followed  by  an 
airing  in  the  wilderness  of  Cayenne.  They  therefore  all  called 
out,  "  Coachman,  to  our  hotel  I"  as  much  as  to  say,  we  will  to- 
day, in  compliment  to  the  new-born  Christian  zeal  of  our  Sove- 
reigns, finish  oui*  evening  as  piously  as  we  have  begun  it.  But 
no  sooner  were  they  out  of  sight  of  the  palace  than  they  hurried 
to  scenes  of  dissipation  ;  all  endeavouring,  in  the  debauchery  and 
excesses  so  natural  to  them,  to  forget  their  unnatural  affectation 
and  hypocrisy. 

Well  you  know  the  standard  of  the  faith  even  of  the  members  of 
the  Buonaparte  family.  Two  days  before  this  Christian  circle  at 
Madame  Napoleone's,  Madame  de  Chateaureine,  with  three  other 
ladies,  visited  the  Princess  Borghese.  Not  seeing  a  favourite  par- 
rot they  had  often  previously  admired,  they  inquired  what  was  be- 
come of  it.  "  Oh,  poor  creature  1"  answered  the  Princess,  "  I  have 
disposed  of  it  as  well  as  of  my  two  monkeys.  The  Emperor  has 
obliged  me  to  engage  an  almoner  and  two  chaplains,  and  it  would 
be  too  extravagant  in  me  to  keep  six  useless  animals  in  my  hotel : 
I  must  now  submit  to  hearing  the  disgusting  howlings  of  my  al- 
moner, instead  of  the  entertaining  chat  of  my  parrot ;  and  to  see 
the  awkward  bows  and  kneelings  of  my  chaplains,  instead  of  the 
amusing  capering  of  my  monkeys.  Add  to  this3  that  I  am  forced 


34  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

to  transform  into  a  chapel  my  elegant  and  tasty  boudoir,  on  the 
ground  floor,  where  I  have  passed  so  many  fortunate  moments, 
so  many  delicious  tete-a-tetes.  Alas  1  what  a  change  !• — what  a 
shocking  fashion,  that  we  are  now  all  again  to  be  Christians  111" 


LETTER  IX. 

Paris,  .August,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

NOTWITHSTANDING  what  was  inserted  in   our  public 
prints  to  the  contrary,  the  reception  Buonaparte  experienced  from 
the  army  of  England  in  June,  last  year,  the  first  time  he  present- 
ed himself  to  them  as  Emperor,  was  tar  from  such  as  flattered 
either  his  vanity  or  views.     For  the  first  days,  some  few  solitary 
voices  alone  accompanied  the  Vive  I*  Mmfiereur  I  of  his  generals, 
and  of  his  aide-de-camps.     This  indifference,  or,  as  he  called  it, 
mutinous   spirit,  was  so  much  the  more  provoking,   as  it  was 
unexpected.     He  did  not,  as  usual,  ascribe  it  to  the  emissaries 
or  gold  of  England,  but  to  the  secret  adherents  of  Pichegru  and 
Moreau,  amongst  the  brigades  or  divisions  that  had  served  under 
these  unfortunate   generals.     He  ordered,  in  consequence,  his. 
minister  Berthier  to  make  out  a  list  of  all  these  corps :  having 
obtained  this,  he  separated  them,  by  ordering  some  to  Italy,  oth- 
ers to  Holland,  and  the  rest  to  the  frontiers  of  Spain  or  Ger- 
many.    This   act  of  revenge  or  jealousy   was  regarded  both  by 
the  officers  and.  men  as  a  disgrace,  and  as  a  doubt  thrown  out 
against  their   fidelity  ;   and  the  murmur  was  loud  and  general. 
In  consequence  of  this,  some  men  were  shot,  and  many  more 
arrested.     Observing,  however,  that  severity  had  not  the  desired 
effect,  Buonaparte  suddenly  changed  his  conduct ;  released  the 
imprisoned,  and  rewarded  with  the  crosses  of  his  Legion  of  Ho- 
nour every  member  of  the   so  lately  suspected  troops,  who  had 
ever  performed  any  brilliant  or  valorous  exploits  under  the  pro- 
scribed generals.    He  even  incorporated  among  his  own  body- 
guards and  guides,  men  who  had  served  in  the  same  capacity  un- 
der these  rival  commanders  ;  and  numbers  of  their  children  wtiv 
received  in  the  prytanees  and  military  free  schools. 


\ 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD-  35 

siastic  exclamation  that  soon  greeted  his  ears  convinced  him 
that  he  had  struck  upon  the  right  string  of  his  soldiers'  hearts. 
Men,  who  some  few  days  before,  wanted  only  the  signal  of  a 
leader  to  cut  an  Emperor  they  hated  to  pieces,  would  now  have 
contended,  who  should  be  foremost  to  shed  their  last  drop  of 
blood  for  a  chief  they  adored. 

This  affected  liberality  towards  the  troops,  who  had  served 
under  his  rivals,  roused  some  slight  discontent  among  those  to 
whom  he  was  chiefly  indebted  for  his  own  laurels.  But  if  he 
knew  the  danger  of  reducing  to  despair  slighted  men  with  arms 
in  their  hands,  he  also  was  well  aware  of  the  equal  danger  of  en- 
during licentiousness  or  audacity,  among  troops  who  had,  on 
all  occasions,  experienced  his  preference  and  partiality  ;  and 
he  gave  a  sanguinary  proof  of  his  opinion  on  this  subject,  at 
the  grand  parade  of  the  12th  July?  1804,  preparatory  to  the  grand 
fete  of  the  I4th.  A  grenadier  of  the  21st  regiment,  (which  was 
known  in  Italy  under  the  name  of  the  Terrible)  in  presenting 
arms  to  him,  said  :  "  Sire  !  I  have  served  under  you  four  cam- 
puigns,  fought  under  you  in  ten  battles  or  engagements  ;  have 
received  in  your  service  seven  wounds,  and  am  not  a  member  of 
your  Legion  of  Honour  ;  whilst  many,  who  served  under  Mo- 
reau,  and  are  not  able  to  show  a  scratch  from  an  enemy,  have 
that  distinction."  Buonaparte  instantly  ordered  this  man  to  be 
shot  by  his  own  comrades,  in  the  front  of  the  regiment.  The 
bix  grenadiers  selected  to  fire  seeming  to  hesitate,  he  commanded 
the  whole  corps  to  lay  down  their  arms  ;  and,  after  being  dis- 
banded, to  be  sent  to  the  colonial  depots.  To  humiliate  them 
still  more,  the  mutinous  grenadier  was  shot  by  the  gens-d'armes. 
When  the  review  was  over,  Vive  V  Rmfiercur  !  resounded  from 
all  parts,  and  his  popularity  among  the  troops  has  since  rather 
increased  than  diminished.  Nobody  can  deny  that  Buonaparte 
possesses  a  great  presence  of  mind,  an  undaunted  firmness,  and 
a  perfect  knowledge  of  the.  character  of  the  people  over  whom 
he  reigns.  Could  but  justice  and  humanity  be  added  to 
his  other  qualities  !  but,  unfortunately  for  my  nation,  I  fear 
that  the  answer  of  General  Mortier  to  a  remark  of  a  friend  of 
mine  on  this  subject,  is  not  problematical :  "  Had,"  said  this  im- 
perial favourite,  "  Napoleone  Buonaparte  been  just  and  humane, 
he  would  neither  have  vanquished  nor  reigned,'* 


36  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

All  these  scenes  occurred  before  Buonaparte,  seated  on  a  throne, 
received  the  homage,  as  a  Sovereign,  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  warriors,  who  now  bowed  as  subjects,  after  having  for 
years  fought  for  liberty  and  equality,  and  sworn  hatred  to  all 
monarchical  institutions  ;  and  who  hitherto  had  saluted  and 
obeyed  him  only  as  the  first  among  equals.  What  an  inconsist- 
ency ! — The  splendour  and  show  that  accompanied  him  every 
where,  the  pageantry  and  courtly  pomp  that  surrounded  him, 
and  the  decorations  of  the  stars  and  ribands  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour,  which  he  distributed  with  bombastic  speeches  among 
troops,  to  whom  those  political  impositions  and  social  cajoleries 
were  novelties,  made  such  an  impression  upon  them,  that 
had  a  bridge  been  fixed  between  Calais  and  Dover,  brave  as  your 
countrymen  are,  I  should  have  trembled  for  the  liberty  and  inde- 
pendence of  your  country.  The  heads  and  imaginations  of  the 
soldiers,  I  know  from  the  best  authority,  were  then  so  exalted, 
that  though  they  might  have  been  cut  to  pieces,  they  could  never 
have  been  defeated  or  routed. — I  pity  our  children,  when  I  re- 
flect, that  their  tranquillity  and  happiness  will  perhaps  depend 
upon  such  a  corrupt  and  unprincipled  people  of  soldiers  ;  easy 
tools  in  the  hands  of  every  impostor  or  mountebank. 

The  lively  satisfaction  which  Buonaparte  must  have  felt  at  the 
pinnacle  of  grandeur,  where  fortune  had  placed  him,  was  not, 
however,  entirely  unmixed  with  uneasiness  and  vexation.  Ex- 
cept at  Berlin,  in  all  the  other  great  courts,  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  was  still  Monsieur  Buonaparte  ;  and  your  country,  of  the 
subjugation  of  which  he  had  spoken  with  such  lightness  and 
such  inconsideration,  instead  of  dreading,  despised  his  boasts 
and  defied  his  threats.  Indeed,  never  before  did  the  cabinet  of 
St.  James  more  opportunely  expose  the  reality  of  his  impotency, 
the  impertinence  of  his  menaces,  and  the  folly  of  his  parade,  for 
the-invasion  of  your  country,  than  by  declaring  all  the  ports  con- 
taining his  invincible  armada,  in  a  state  of  blockade.  I  have  heard 
from  an  officer  who  witnessed  his  fury,  when,  in  May,  1799,  he 
was  compelled  to  retreat  from  before  St.  Jean  d'Acre,  and  who 
was  by  his  side  in  the  camp  of  Boulogne,  when  a  dispatch  inform- 
ed him  of  this  circumstance,  that  it  was  nothing  compared  to  the 
violent  rage  into  which  he  flew  upon  reading  it.  For  an  hour 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  37 

-afterwards,  not  even  his  brother  Joseph  dared  approach  him  ; 
and  his  passion  got  so  far  the  better  of  his  policy,  that  what 
might  still  have  long  been  concealed  from  the  troops  was  known 
within  the  evening  to  the  whole  camp.  He  dictated  to  his  secre- 
tary orders  for  his  ministers  at  Vienna,  Berlin,  Lisbon,  and  Mad- 
rid, and  couriers  were  sent  away  with  them;  but  half  an  hour 
afterwards  other  couriers  were  dispatched  after  them,  with  other 
orders ;  which  were  revoked  in  their  turn,  when  at  last  Joseph 
had  succeeded  in  calming  him  a  little.  He  passed,  however,  the 
whole  following  night  full  dressed  and  agitated  ;  laying  down  on- 
ly for  an  instant,  but  having  always  in  his  room  Joseph  and  Du- 
roc,  and  deliberating  on  a  thousand  methods  of  destroying  the 
insolent  islanders  ;  all  equally  violent,  but  all  equally  impracti- 
cable. 

The  next  morning,  when,  as  usual,  he  went  to  see  the  manoeu- 
vres of  his  flotilla,  and  the  embarkation  and  landing  of  his  troops, 
he  looked  so  pale,  that  he  almost  excited  pity.  Your  cruizers,  how- 
ever, as  if  they  had  been  informed  of  the  situation  of  our  hero,  ap- 
proached unusually  near,  to  evince,  as  it  were,  their  contempt  and 
derision.  He  ordered  instantly  all  the  batteries  to  fire,  and  went  him- 
self to  that  which  carried  its  shot  farthest ;  but  that  moment  six 
of  your  vessels,  after  taking  in  their  sails,  cast  anchor,  with  the 
greatest  sangfroid,  just  without  the  reuch  of  our  shot.  In  una- 
vailing anger  he  broke  upon  the  spot  six  officers  of  artillery,  and 
pushed  one  Captain  d'Ablincourt  clown  the  precipice,  under  the 
battery,  where  he  narrowly  escaped  breaking  his  neck  as  well  as 
his  legs ;  for  which  injury  he  was  compensated  by  being  made 
an  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Buonaparte  then  convoked  up- 
upon  the  spot,  a  council  of  his  generals  of  artillery  and  of  the  engi- 
neers, and,  within  an  hour's  time,  some  guns  and  mortars,  of 
still  heavier  metal  and  greater  calibre,  were  carried  up  to  replace 
the  ot-  ers  ;  but,  fortunately  for  the  generals,  before  a  trial  cojild 
be  nirdc;  of  them,  the  tide  changed,  and  your  cruizers  sailed. 

In  returning  to  breakfast,  at  General  Soult's,  he  observed  the 
countenances  of  his  soldiers  rather  inclined  to  laughter  than  to 
w  th ;  and  Le  heard  some  jests,  significant  enough  in  the  vo- 
cabulary of  encampments,  and  which  informed  him  that  contempt 
was  not  the  sentiment  with  which  your  navy  had  inspired  his 
troops.  The  occurrences  of  these  two  days  hastened  his  depar- 


38  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

ture  from  the  coast  for  Aix  la  Chapelle,  where  the  cringing  oi 
his  courtiers  consoled  him  for  the  want  of  respect  or  gallantry 
in  your  English  tars. 


LETTER  X. 

Paris,  August,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

ACCORDING  to  a  general  belief  in  our  diplomatic  circles,  it 
was  the  Austrian  ambassador  in  France,  Count  Cobentzel,  who 
principally  influenced  the  determination  of  Francis  II.  to  assume 
the  hereditary  title  of  Emperor  of  Austria,  and  to  acknowledge 
Napoleone  Emperor  of  the  French. 

Jean  Philippe  Count  de  Cobentzel  enjoys,  not  only  in  his  own 
country,  but  through  all  Europe,  a  great  reputation  as  a  states- 
man, and  has  for  a  number  of  years  been  employed  by  his  court 
in  the  most  intricate  and  delicate  political  transactions.  In  1790 
he  was  sent  to  Brabant  to  treat  with  the  Belgian  insurgents,  but 
the  States  of  Brabant  refusing  to  receive  him,  he  retired  to 
Luxembourg,  where  he  published  a  proclamation,  in  which 
Leopold  II.  revoked  all  those  edicts  of  his  predecessor  Joseph  II. 
which  had  been  the  principal  cause  of  the  troubles  ;  and  re-estab- 
lished every  thing  upon  the  same  footing  as  during  the  reign  of 
Mttria  Theresa.  In  1791,  he  was  appointed  ambassador  to  the 
court  of  St.  Petersburg!!,  where  his  conduct  obtained  the  appro- 
bation of  his  own  Prince,  and  of  the  Empress  of  Russia. 

In  1793,  the  committee  of  Public  Safety  nominated  the  intri- 
guer, De  Semonville,  ambassador  to  the  Ottoman  Porte.  His 
mission  was  to  excite  the  Turks  against  Austria  and  Russia,  and 
it  became  of  great  consequence  to  the  two  Imperial  courts,  to 
seize  this  incendiary  of  regicides.  He  was  therefore  stopped,  on 
the"  2 5th  of  July,  in  the  village  of  Novate,  near  the  lake  of  Chia- 
vanne.  A  rumour  was  very  prevalent  at  this  time  that  some  pa- 
pers were  found  in  De  Semonviile's  porte-folio  implicating  Count 
de  Cobentzel  as  a  correspondent  with  the  revolutionary  French 
generals.  The  continued  confidence  of  his  sovereign  contradicts, 
however,  this  inculpation,  which  seems  to  have  been  merely  the 
invention  of  rivalry  or  jealousy. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  39 

Tn  October,  1795,  Count  cle  Cobentzel  signed,  in  the  name  of 
the  Emperor,  a  treaty  with  England  and  Russia ;  and  in  1797  he  was 
one  of  the  Imperial  plenipotentiaries  sent  to  Udine  to  negotiate 
with  Buonaparte,  with  whom,  on  the  17th  of  October,  he  signed 
the  treaty  of  Campo  Formio.  In  the  same  capacity,  he  went  af- 
terwards to  Radstadt,  and  when  this  congress  broke  up,  here- 
turned  again  as  an  ambassador  to  St.  Petersburg!!. 

After  the  peace  of  Luneville,  when  it  required  to  have  a  man  of 
experience  and  talents,  to  oppose  to  our  so  dce/ily  able  minister, 
Talleyrand,  the  cabinet  of  Vienna  removed  him  from  Russia  to 
France,  where,  with  all  other  representatives  of  princes,  he  has 
experienced  more  of  the  frowns  and  rebukes,  than  of  the  dignity 
and  good  grace,  of  our  present  sovereign. 

Count  cle  Cobentzel's  foible  is  said  to  be  a  passion  for  women  ; 
and  it  is  reported  that  our  worthy  minister  Talleyrand  has  been 
kind  enough  to  assist  him  frequently  in  his  amours.  Some  ad- 
ventures of  this  sort,  which  occurred  at  Radstadt,  afforded  much 
amusement  at  the  Count's  expense.  Talleyrand,  from  envy,  no 
doubt,  does  not  allow  him  the  same  political  merit  as  his  other 
political  contemporaries,  having  frequently  repeated,  "  that  the 
official  dinners  of  Count  cle  Cobentzel  were  greatly  preferable  to 
his  official  notes." 

So  well  pleased  was  Buonaparte  with  this  ambassador,  when  at 
Aix  la  Chapelle  last  year,  that,  as  a  singular  favour,  he  permit- 
ted him,  with  the  Marquis  de  Gallo  (the  Neapolitan  minister, 
and  another  plenipotentiary  at  Udine)  to  visit  the  camps  of  his 
army  of  England  on  the  coast.  It  is  true  that  this  condescension 
was  perhaps  as  much  a  boast,  or  a  threat,  as  a  compliment. 

The  famous  diplomatic  note  of  Talleyrand,  which,  at  Aix  la 
Chapelle,  proscribed  en  masse  all  your  diplomatic  agents,  was 
only  a  slight  revenge  of  Buonaparte's  for  your  mandate  of  block- 
ade. Rumour  states,  that  this  measure  was  not  approved  of  by 
Talleyrand,  as  it  would  not  exclude  any  of  your  ambassadors 
from  those  courts  not  immediately  under  the  whip  of  our  Napo- 
leone.  For  fear,  however,  of  some  more  extravagant  determi- 
nation, Joseph  Buonaparte  dissuaded  him  from  laying  before 
Ms  brother  any  objection  or  representation  ;  "  But  what  absurd- 
ities do  I  not  sign  I"  exclaimed  the  pliant  minister. 

Buonaparte,  on  his  arrival  at  Aix  la  Chapelle,  found  there,  ac~ 


49  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

cording  to  command,  most  of  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplo- 
matic corps  in  France,  waiting  to  present  their  new  credentials 
to  him  as  Emperor.  Charlemagne  had  been  saluted  as  such  in 
the  same  place,  eight  hundred  years  before  ;  an  inducement  for 
the  modern  Charlemagne,  to  set  all  these  ambassadors  travelling 
some  hundred  miles,  without  any  other  object,  but  to  gratify  his 
impertinent  vanity.  Every  spot  where  Charlemagne  had  walked, 
sat,  slept,  talked,  eaten  or  prayed,  was  visited  by  him  with  great 
ostentation  ;  always  dragging  behind  him  the  foreign  representa- 
tives, and  by  his  side  his  wife.  To  a  peasant  who  presented 
him  a  stone,  upon  which  Charlemagne  was  sakl  to  have  once  kneel- 
ed, he  gave  nearly  half  its  weight  in  gold;  on  a  priest,  who  offer- 
ed him  a  small  crucifix,  before  which  that  Prince  was  reported 
to  have  prayed,  he  bestowed  an  episcopal  see  ;  to  a  manufacturer 
he  ordered  one  thousand  Louis,  for  a  portrait  of  Charlemagne, 
said  to  be  drawn  by  his  daughter,  but  which,  in  fact,  was  from 
the  pencil  of  the  daughter  of  the  manufacturer  ;  a  German  sa- 
vant was  made  a  member  of  the  National  Institute,  for  an  old 
diploma,  supposed  to  have  been  signed  by  Charlemagne,  who 
many  believe,  was  not  able  to  write  ;  and  a  German  Baron  Krigge, 
\vas  registered  in  the  Legion  of  Honour,  for  a  ring  presented 
by  this  Emperor  to  one  of  his  ancestors,  though  his  nobility 
is  well  known  not  to  be  of  sixty  years  standing.  But  woe  to  him 
who  dared  to  suggest  any  doubt  about  whatNapoleone  believed,  or 
seemed  to  believe  !  A  German  professor  Richter,  more  a  pedant 
than  a  courtier,  and  more  sincere  than  wise,  addressed  a  short 
memorial  to  Buonaparte,  in  which  he  proved,  from  his  intimacy 
with  antiquity,  that  most  of  the  pretended  relics  of  Charlemagne 
were  impositions  on  the  credulous;  that  the  portrait  was  a  draw- 
ing of  this  century,  the  diploma  written  in  the  last ;  the  cruci- 
llx  manufactured  within  fifty,  and  the  ring,  perhaps,  within  ten 
years.  The  night  after  Buonaparte  had  perused  this  memorial, 
a  police  commissary,  accompanied  by  four  gens-d'armes,  entered 
the  professor's  bed  room,  forced  him  to  dress,  and  ushered  him 
into  a  covered  cart,  which  carried  him  under  escort  to  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhine ;  where  he  was  left  with  orders,  under  pain  . 
of  death,  never  more  to  enter  the  territory  of  the  French  empire,, 
This  expeditious  and  summary  justice  silenced  all  other  connois- 
seurs and  antiquarians  ;  and  relics  of  Charlemagne  have  since 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  41 

poured  in,  in  such  numbers,  from  all  parts  of  France,  Italy,  Ger- 
many, and  even  Denmark,  that  we  are  here  in  hope  to  see  one 
day  established  a  museum  Charlemagne,  by  the  side  of  the  mu- 
seums Napoleone  and  Josephine.  A  ballad  written  in  monkish 
Latin,  said  to  be  sung  by  the  daughters  and  maids  of  Charle- 
magne, at  his  court  on  great  festivites,  was  addressed  to  Duroc,  by 
a  Danish  professor  Cranener,  who  in  return  was  presented.,  OH 
the  part  of  Buonaparte,  with  a  diamond  ring,  worth  twelve  thou- 
sand livres  ;  500/.  This  ballad  may,  perhaps,  be  the  foundation 
of  a  future  Bibliotheque  or 


LETTER  XI. 

Paris,  August,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

ON  the  arrival  of  her  husband  at  Aix  la  Chapelle,  Madame 
Napoleone  had  lost  her  money  by  gambling,  without  recovering 
her  health  by  using  the  baths  and  drinking  the  waters ;  she  was 
therefore  as  poor  as  low-spirited,  and  as  ill-tempered  as  dissatis- 
fied. Napoleone  himself  was  neither  much  in  humour  to  sup- 
ply her  present  wants,  provide  for  her  extravagancies,  or  to  for- 
give her  ill-nature ;  he  ascribed  the  inefficacy  of  the  waters  to 
her  excesses  ;  and  reproached  her  for  too  great  condescension  to 
many  persons,  who  presented  themselves  at  her  drawing-room, 
and  in  her  circle,  but  who,  from  their  rank  in  life,  were  only  fit 
to  be  seen  as  supplicants  in  her  anti-chambers,  and  as  associates 
with  her  valets  or  chambermaids. 

The  fact  was,  that  Madame  Napoleone  knew  as  well  as  her 
husband,  that  these  gentry  were  not  in  their  place,  in  the  com- 
pany of  an  Empress  ;  but  they  were  her  creditors,  some  of  them 
even  Jews ;  and  as  long  as  she  continued  debtor  to  them,  she 
could  not  decently,  or  rather  she  dared  not,  prevent  them  from 
being  visitors  to  her.  By  coi:fi  .ling  her  situation  to  her  old  friend 
Talleyrand,  she  was,  however,  soon  released  from  these  trouble- 
some personages.  When  the  minister  was  informed  of  the  oc- 
casion of  the  attendance  of  these  ira pertinent  intruders,  he 
humbly  proposed  to  Buonap  irte,  not  to  pay  their  demands  and 
their  due ;  but  to  make  tnem  examples  of  severe  justice  iflr 

E  2 


42  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

transporting  them  to  Cayenne,  as  the  only  sure  means  to  pre- 
vent, for  the  future,  people  of  the  same  description,  from  being 
familiar  or  audacious. 

When,  thanks  to  Talleyrand's  interference,  these  family  ar- 
rangements were  settled,  Madame  Napoleone  recovered  her 
health  with  her  good  humour  ;  and  her  husband,  who  had  begun 
to  forget  the  English  blockade,  only  to  think  of  the  papal  accolade, 
(dubbing)  was  more  tender  than  ever.  I  am  assured,  that  dur- 
ing the  fortnight  he  continued  with  his  wife  at  Aix  la  Chapelle, 
lie  only  shut  her  up  or  confined  her  twice,  kicked  her  three  times, 
and  abused  her  once  a  day. 

It  was  during  their  residence  in  that  capital,  that  Count  de  Se- 
gur, at  last,  completed  the  composition  of  their  household  ;  and 
laid  before  them  the  list  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen,  who  had 
consented  to  put  on  their  livery.  This  de  Segur  is  a  kind  of  am- 
phibious animal,  neither  a  royalist  nor  a  republican  ;  neither  a  de- 
mocrat nor  an  aristocrat ;  but  a  disaffected  subject  under  a  king; 
a  dangerous  citizen  of  a  commonwealth  ;  ridiculing  both  the 
friend  of  equality  and  the  defender  of  prerogatives  ;  no  exact  de- 
finition can  be  given  from  his  past  conduct  and  avowed  profcs- 
bions,  of  his  real,  moral,  and  political  character.  One  thing  is 
only  certain — he  was  an  ungrateful  traitor  to  Louis  XVI.  and  13. 
a  submissive  slave  under  Napoleone  the  First. 

Though  not  of  an  ancient  family,  Count  de  Segur  was  a  no* 
bleman  by  birth,  and  ranked  among  the  ancient  French  nobility, 
because  one  of  his  ancestors  had  been  a  field -mareschal.  Being 
rurly  introduced  at  court,  he  acquired,  with  the  common  corrup- 
tion, also  the  pleasing  manners  of  a  courtier  ;  and  by  his  assidui* 
ties  about  the  ministers,  Counts  de  Maurepas  and  de  Vergennes, 
he  procured  from  the  latter  the  place  of  an  ambassador  to  the 
Court  of  St.  PetersbuFgh.  With  some  reading  and  genius,  but 
with  more  boasting  and  presumption,  he  classed  himself  among 
French  men  of  letters,  and  was  therefore  as  such  received  with 
distinction  by  Catharine  II.  on  whom,  and  on  whose  government, 
,  he  in  return  published  a  libel.  He  was  a  valet  under  La  Fay- 
ette,  in  1789,  as  he  has  since  been  under  every  succeeding  king 
of  faction.  The  partisans  of  the  Revolution  pointed  him  out  as 
9  fit  ambassador  from  Louis  XVI.  to  the  late  king  of  Prussia  ; 
*god  he  went  in  J791  to  Berlin,  in  that  capacity  j  but  Frederic 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  43 

William  II.  refused  him  admittance  to  his  person,  and  after  some 
ineffectual  intrigues  with  the  illuminati  and  pJiilosophcrs  at  Ber- 
lin, he  returned  to  Paris  as  he  left  it ;  provided,  however,  with 
materials  for  another  libel  on  the  Prussian  monarch,  and  on  the 
House  of  Brandenburg!},  which  he  printed  in  1796.  Ruined  by 
the  Revolution  which  he  had  so  much  admired,  he  was  impri- 
soned under  Robespierre,  and  was  near  starving  under  the  Direc- 
tory, having  nothing  but  his  literary  production*  to  subsist  on.  In 
1799,  Buonaparte  made  him  a  legislator,  and  in  1803,  a  counsel- 
lor of  state;  a  place  which  he  resigned  last,  year,  for  that  of  a  grind 
master  of  the  ceremonies  at  the  present  Imperial  court.  His  an- 
cie.it  inveteracy  against  your  country  has  made  Lim  a  favourite 
with  Buonaparte.  The  indelicate  and  scandalous  attacks  in  \7' 6 
and  1797,  against  Lord  Malmesbury,  in  the  then  official  joun;al> 
le  Rcdactcur^  were  the  offspring  of  his  malignity  and  pen  ;  ai;d 
the  philippics  and  abusive  notes  in  our  present  official  Moniicur, 
against  your  government  and  country,  are  frequently  his/'fltfnVric 
progeny,  or  rather,  he  often  shares  with  Talleyrand  and  Huu- 
terive  their  paternity. 

The  Revolution  has  not  made  Count  de  Segur  more  happy 
with  regard  to  his  family,  than  in  his  circumstances,  which,  not- 
withstanding his  brilliant  grand  mastership,  are  fur  from  being 
affluent.  His  amiable  wife  died  of  terror,  and  broken-hearted, 
from  the  sufferings  she  had  experienced,  and  the  atrocities  she 
had  witnessed ;  and  when  he  had  enticed  his  eldest  son  to  ac- 
cept the  place  of  a  sub-prefect  under  Buonaparte,  his  youngest 
KOII,  who  never  approved  our  present  regeneration,  challenged 
his  brother  to  fight,  and  after  killing  him  in  a  duel,  destroyed 
himself.  Count  de  Segur  is  therefore  at  present  neither  a  hus- 
band nor  a  father,  but  only  a  grand  master  of  ceremonies  !  What 
an  indemnification  ! 

Madame  Napoleone,  and  her  husband,  are  both  certainly  under 
much  obligation  to  this  nobleman,  for  his  cure  to  procure  them 
comparatively  decent  persons  to  decorate  their  levees  and  draw- 
ing-rooms ;  who,  though  they  have  no  claim  either  to  morality 
or  virtue,  either  to  honour  or  chastity,  are  undoubtedly  a  great 
acquisition  at  the  Court  of  St.  Cloud,  because  none  of  them  has 
either  been  accused  of  murder,  or  convicted  of  plunder  ;  which 
is  the  case  with  some  of  the  ministers,  and  most  of  the  gene* 


44  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

rals,  senators,  and  counsellors.  It  is  true,  that  they  are  a  mix- 
ture of  beggared  nobles,  and  enriched  valets  ;  of  married  cour- 
tesans and  divorced  wives  ;  but,  for  all  that,  they  can  with  justice 
demand  the  places  of  honour  of  all  other  Imperial  courtiers  of  both 
sexes. 

When  Buonaparte  had  read  over  the  names  of  these  court  re- 
cruits, engaged  and  enlisted  by  de  Segur,  he  said,  "  Well,  this 
lumber  must  do  until  we  can  exchange  it  for  better  furniture." 
At  that  time,  young  Count  d'Arberg  (of  a  German  family,  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine)  but  whose  mother  is  one  of  Madame 
Buonaparte's  maids  of  honour,  was  travelling  for  him  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  Prussia,  where,  among  other  negotiations^  he  was 
charged  to  procure  some  persons  of  both  sexes?  of  the  most  an- 
cient nobility,  to  augment  Napoleone's  suite,  and  to  figure  in  his 
livery.  More  individuals  presented  themselves  for  this  honour 
than  he  wanted,  but  they  were  all  without  education,  and  without 
address  ;  ignorant  of  the  world  as  of  books  ;  not  speaking  well 
their  own  language,  much  less  understanding  French  or  Italian  ; 
vain  of  their  birth,  but  not  ashamed  of  their  ignorance,  and  as 
proud  as  poor.  This  project  was  therefore  relinquished  for  the 
present ;  but  a  number  of  the  children  of  the  principal  ci-dcvant 
German  nobles,  who,  by  the  treaty  of  Luneville  and  Ratisbon, 
had  become  subjects  of  Buonaparte,  were,  by  the  advice  of  Tal- 
leyrand, offered  places  in  French  Prytanees,  where  the  Emperor 
promised  to  take  care  of  their  future  advancement.  Madame 
Buonaparte,  at  the  same  time,  selected  twenty-five  young  girls 
of  the  same  families,  whom  she  also  offered  to  educate  at  her  ex- 
pense. Their  parents  understood  too  well  the  meaning  of  these 
generous  offers,  to  dare  decline  their  acceptance.  These  children 
are  the  plants  of  the  Imperial  nursery,  intended  to  produce  future 
pages,  chamberlains,  equerries,  maids  of  honour,  and  ladies  in 
waiting,  who,  for  ancestry,  may  bid  defiance  to  all  their  equals 
of  every  court  in  Christendom.  This  act  of  bcntrvoltnce,  as  it  was 
called  in  some  German  papers,  is  also  an  indirect  chastisement 
of  the  refractory  French  nobility,  who  either  demanded  too  high 
prices  for  their  degradation,  or  abruptly  refused  to  disgrace  the 
Buraes  of  their  forefathers. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  43 

LETTER  XII. 

Paris,   August,   1805. 

MY    LORD, 

BUONAPARTE  has  been  as  profuse  in  his  disposal  of  the 
Imperial  diadem  of  Germany,  as  in  his  promises  of  the  papal 
tiara  of  Rome.  The  Houses  of  Austria  and  Brandenburgh,  the 
Electors  of  Bavaria  and  Baden,  have,  by  turns,  been  cajoled  into 
a  belief  of  his  exclusive  support  towards  obtaining  it  at  the  first 
vacancy.  Those,  however,  who  have  paid  attention  to  his  machi- 
nations, and  studied  his  actions  ;  who  remember  his  pedantic  af- 
fectation of  being  considered  a  modern,  or  rather  a  second  Charle- 
magne ;  and  who  have  traced  his  steps  through  the  labyrinth 
of  folly  and  wickedness,  of  meanness  and  greatness,  of  art,  cor- 
ruption and  policy,  which  have  seated  him  on  his  present  throne* 
can  entertain  little  doubt,  but  that  he  is  seriously  bent  on  seizing 
and  adding  the  sceptre  of  Germany  to  the  crowns  of  France  and 
Italy. 

During  his  stay  last  autumn  at  Mentz,  all  those  German  Elec- 
tors, who  had  spirit  and  dignity  enough  to  refuse  to  attend  on  him 
there  in  person,  were  obliged  to  send  extraordinary  ambassa- 
dors to  wait  on  him,  and  to  compliment  him  on  their  part. 
Though  hardly  one  corner  of  the  veil  that  covered  the  intrigues 
going  forward  there  is  yet  lifted  up,  enough  is  already  seen  to 
warn  Europe  and  alarm  the  world.  The  secret  treaties  he  con- 
cluded there  with  most  of  the  petty  Princes  of  Germany,  against 
the  Chief  of  the  German  empire,  (which  net  only  entirely  detached 
them  from  their  country  and  its  legitimate  Sovereign,  but  made 
their  individual  interests  hostile,  and  totally  opposite  to  that  of  the 
German  commonwealth,  transforming  them  also  from  independ- 
ent princes  into  vassals  of  France)  both  directly  increased  his  al- 
ready gigantic  power,  and  indirectly  encouraged  him  to  extend  it 
beyond  what  his  most  sanguine  expectations  had  induced  him  to 
hope.  I  do  not  make  this  assertion  from  a  mere  supposition  in 
consequence  of  ulterior  occurrences.  At  a  supper  with  Madame 
Talleyrand  last  March,  I  heard  her  husband,  in  a  gay,  unguard- 
ed, or  perhaps  premeditated  moment,  say,  when  mentioning  his 
proposed  journey  to  Italy,  "  I  prepared  myself  to  pass  the  Alps 
l3st  October  at  "Mentz.,  The  first  ground-stone  of  the  throne  of 


46  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Italy  was,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  laid  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine :  with  such  an  extensive  foundation,  it  must  be  difficult  to 
shake,  and  impossible  to  overturn  it."  We  were  in  the  whole 
twenty-five  persons  at  table  when  he  spoke  thus,  many  of  whom, 
he  well  knew,  were  intimately  acquainted  both  with  the  Austrian 
and  Prussian  ambassadors,  who,  by  the  bye,  both  on  the  next  day 
sent  couriers  to  their  respective  courts. 

The  French  Revolution  is  neither  seen  in  Germany  in  that 
dangerous  light  which  might  naturally  be  expected  from  the 
sufferings  in  which  it  has  involved  both  princes  and  subjects, 
nor  are  its  future  effects  dreaded  from  its  past  enormities.  The 
cause  of  this  impolitic  and  an ti -patriotic  apathy  is  to  be  looked 
for  in  the  palaces  of  Sovereigns,  and  not  in  the  dwellings  of  their 
people.  There  exists  hardly  a  single  German  Prince,  whose 
ministers,  courtiers  and  counsellors  are  not  numbered,  and  have 
long  been  notorious  among  the  anti-social  conspirators,  the  illu- 
minati :  most  of  them  are  knaves  of  abilities,  who  had  usurped 
the  easy  direction  of  ignorance,  or  forced  themselves  as  guides 
on  weakness  or  folly,  which  bow  to  their  charlatanism,  as  if  it 
was  sublimity,  and  hail  their  sophistry  and  imposture  as  inspira" 
tion. 

Among  princes,  thus  encompassed,  the  Elector  of  Bavaria 
must  be  allowed  a  first  place.  A  younger  brother  of  a  younger 
branch,  and  a  colonel  in  the  service  of  Louis  XVI.  he  neither  ac- 
quired by  education  nor  inherited  from  nature,  any  talent  to 
reign,  nor  possessed  any  one  quality  that  fitted  him  for  a  higher 
situation  than  the  head  of  a  regiment,  or  a  lady's  drawing-room. 
He  made  himself  justly  suspected  of  moral  corruption,  as  well  as. 
of  a  natural  incapacity,  when  he  announced  his  approbation  of 
the  Revolution  against  his  benefactor,  the  late  King  of  France, 
who,  besides  a  regiment,  had  also  given  him  a  yearly  pension  of  one 
hundred  thousand  livres,  4000/.  Immediately  after  his  unexpect- 
ed accession  to  the  Electorate  of  Bavaria,  he  concluded  a  subsi- 
diary treaty  with  your  country,  and  his  troops  were  ordered  to 
combat  rebellion,  under  the  standard  of  Austrian  loyalty.  For 
some  months  it  was  believed  that  the  Elector  wished,  by  his  con- 
duct, to  obliterate  the  memory  of  the  errors,  vices,  and  principles 
of  the  Duke  of  Deux  Ponts  (his  former  title).  But  placing  all 
his.  confidence  in  a  political  adventurer  and  revolutionary  fanatic. 


,    COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  47 

Montgelas,  without  either  consistency  or  firmness,  without  being 
either  bent  upon  information,  or  anxious  about  popularity,  he 
threw  the  whole  burthen  of  state  on  the  shoulders  of  this  danger- 
ous man,  who  soon  showed  the  world  that  his  master,  by  his  first 
treaties,  intended  only  to  pocket  your  money,  without  serving 
your  cause  or  interest. 

This  Montgelas  is,  on  account  of  his  cunning  and  long  stand- 
ing among  them,  worshipped  by  the  gang  of  German  illuminati 
as  an  idol,  rather  than  revered  as  an  apostle.  He  is  their  Baal, 
before  whom  they  hope  to  oblige  all  nations  upon  earth  to  pros- 
trate themselves,  as  soon  as  infidelity  has  entirely  banished 
Christianity;  for  the  illuminati  do  not  expect- to  reign  till  the 
last  Christian  is  buried  under  the  rubbish  of  the  last  altar  of 
Christ.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  Montgelas,  if  such  an  event  has  not 
already  occurred  in  the  electorate  of  Bavaria. 

Within  six  months  after  the  treaty  of  Luneville,  Montgelas 
began  in  that  country  his  political  and  religious  innovations.  The 
nobility  and  the  clergy  were  equally  attacked ;  the  privileges  of 
the  former  were  invaded,  and  the  property  of  the  latter  confiscat- 
ed ;  and  had  not  his  zeal  carried  him  too  far,  so  as  to  alarm  our 
new  nobles,  our  new  men  of  property,  and  new  Christians,  it  is 
very  probable  that  atheism  would  have  already,  without  opposi- 
tion, reared  its  head  in  the  midst  of  Germany,  and  proclaimed 
there  the  rights  of  man,  and  the  code  of  liberty  and  equality. 

The  inhabitants  of  Bavaria  are,  as  you  know,  all  Roman  Ca- 
tholics, and  the  most  superstitious  and  ignorant  Catholics  of 
Germany.  The  step  is  but  short  from  superstition  to  infidelity  ; 
and  ignorance  has  furnished  in  France  more  sectaries  of  atheism 
than  perversity.  The  illuminati,  brothers  and  friends  of  Mont- 
gelas, have  not  been  idle  in  that  country.  Their  writings  have 
perverted  those  who  had  no  opportunity  to  hear  their  speeches,  or 
to  witness  their  example  ;  and  I  am  assured  by  Count  de  Buest, 
who  travelled  in  Bavaria  last  year,  that  their  progress  among  the 
lower  classes  is  astonishing,  considering  the  short  period  these 
emissaries  have  laboured.  To  any  one  looking  on  the  map  of 
the  continent,  and  acquainted  with  the  spirit  of  our  times,  this 
impious  focus  of  illumination  must  be  ominous. 

Among  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps,  there  ex- 
ists not  the  least  doubt  but  that  this  Montgelas,  as  well  as  Buona- 


48  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

parte's  minister  at  Munich,  Otto,  was  acquainted  with  the  trea- 
cherous part  Mehee  de  la  Touche  played  against  your  minister, 
Drake  ;  and  that  it  was  planned  between  him  and  Talleyrand,  as 
the  surest  means  to  break  off  all  political  connexions  between 
your  country  and  Bavaria.  Mr.  Drake  was  personally  liked  by 
the  Elector,  and  was  not  inattentive  either  to  the  plans  and  views 
of  Montgelas,  or  the  intrigues  of  Otto.  They  were,  therefore, 
both  doubly  interested  to  remove  such  a  troublesome  witness. 

M.  de  Montgelas  is  now  a  grand  officer  of  Buonaparte's  Legion 
of  Honour,  and  he  is  one  of  the  few  foreigners  nominated,  the 
-most  worthy  of  such  a  distinction.  In  France  he  would  have  been 
an  acquisition  either  to  the  factions  of  a  Marat,  of  a  Brissot,  or  of 
a  Robespierre  ;  and  the  Goddess  of  Reason,  as  well  as  the  God  of 
the  Theophilanthropists,  might  have  been  sure  of  counting  him 
among  their  adorers.  At  the  clubs  of  the  Jacobins  or  Corde- 
liers, in  the  fraternal  societies,  or  in  a  revolutionary  tribunal ;  in 
the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  or  in  the  Council  Chamber  of 
the  Directory,  he  would  equally  have  made  himself  notorious, 
and  been  equally  in  his  place.  A  stoic  sans-culotte  under  Du 
Clots,  a  staunch  Republican  under  Robespierre,  he  would  now 
have  been  the  most  pliant  and  brilliant  courtier  of  Buonaparte. 


LETTER    XIII. 

Paris,  August^    1805. 

MY    LORD, 

NO  Qiuen  of  France  ever  saw  so  many  foreign  princes  and 
princesses  in  her  drawing-rooms  as  the  first  Empress  of  the 
French  did  last  year  at  Mentz  ;  and  no  Sovereign  was  ever  1 
so  well  paid,  or  accepted  with  less  difficulty  donations  and  pre- 
sents for  her  gracious  protection.  Madame  Napoitione  herself, 
on  her  return  to  this  capital  last  October,  boasted  that  she  was 
ten  millions  of  livres  (420,000/.  richer  in  diamonds  ;  two  millions 
of  livres  (62,000/.)  richer  in  pearls,  and  three  millions  of  livrcs 
(125,000/.)  richer  in  plate  and  china,  than  in  the  June  before, 
when  she  quitted  it.  She  acknowledged  that  she  left  behind  her 
some  creditors  and  some  money  at  Aix  la  Chapelle ;  but  at 
Mentz  she  did  not  want  to  borrow,  nor  had  time  to  gamble  j  the 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  4t 

gallant  ultra  Rhomans  provided  every  thing,  even  to  the  utmost 
extent  of  her  wishes  ;  and  she,  on  her  part,  could  not  but  honour 
those  with  her  company  as  much  as  possible,  particularly  as  they 
required  nothing  else  for  their  civilities.  Such  was  the  Empress's 
expression  to  her  lady  in  waiting;,  the  handsome  Madame  de  Se- 
van, with  whom  no  confidence,  no  tale,  no  story,  and  no  scandal 
expires  ;  and  who  was  in  a  great  hurry  to  inform,  the  same  even- 
ing, the  tea  party  at  Madame  de  Beauvais  of  this  good  news  ; 
complaining  at  the  same  time  of  not  having  had  the  least  share  in 
this  rich  harvest. 

No  where,  indeed,  were  bribery  and  corruption  carried  to  a 
greater  extent,  or  practised  with  more  effrontery,  than  at  Mentz. 
Madame  Napoleone  had  as  much  her  fixed  price  for  every  fa- 
vourable word  she  spoke,  as  Talleyrand  had  for  every  line,  he 
wrote.  Even  the  attendants  of  the  former,  and  the  clerks  of  the 
latter,  demanded  or  rather  extorted  douceurs  from  the  exhausted 
and  almost  ruined  German  petitioners  ;  who,  in  the  end,  were  re- 
warded for  all  their  meanness,  and  for  all  their  expenses,  with  pro- 
mises at  best ;  as  the  new  plan  of  supplementary  indemnities 
was,  on  the  very  day  proposed  for  its  final  arrangement,  postpon- 
ed by  the  desire  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French  until  further  or- 
ders. This  provoking  delay  could  no  more  be  foreseen  by  the 
Empress,  than  by  the  minister,  who,  in  return  for  their  presents 
and  money,  almost  overpowered  the  German  princes  with  his 
protestations  of  regret  at  their  disappointments.  Nor  was  Ma- 
dume  Buonaparte  less  sorry  or  less  civil.  She  sent  her  cham- 
berlain, Daubussonla  Feuillad,  with  regular  compliments  of  con- 
dolence, to  every  Prince  who  had  enjoyed  her  protection.  They 
returned  to  their  homes,  therefore,  it*  not  wealthier,  at  least  hap- 
pier ;  flattered  by  assurances  and  condescensions,  confiding  in 
hope  as  in  certainties.  Within  three  months,  however,  it  is  sup- 
posed, that  they  would  willingly  have  disposed  both  of  promises 
and  expectations,  at  a  loss  of  fifty  par  cent. 

By  the  cupidity  and  selfishness  of  these  and  other  German  Princes, 
and  their  want  of  patriotism,  Talleyrand  has  become  perfectly 
acquainted  with  the  value  and  production  of  every  principality, 
bishopric,  county,  abbey,  barony,  convent,  and  even  village  in  the 
German  empire ;  and  though  most  national  property  in  France 
was  disposed  of  at  one  or  two  years  purchase,  he  required  five 

F 


AO  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

years  purchase-money  for  all  the  estates  and  lands  on  the  othef 
side  of  the  Rhine  ;  of  which,  under  the  name  of  indemnities,  he 
stripped  the  lawful  owners,  to  gratify  the  ambition,  or  avidity  of 
intruders.  This  high  price  has  cooled  the  claims  of  the  bidders, 
and  the  plan  of  the  supplementary  indemnities  is  still  suspended, 
and  probably  will  continue  so  until  our  minister  lowers  his  terms. 
A  combination  is  supposed  to  have  been  entered  into  by  the  chief 
demanders  of  indemnities,  by  which  they  have  bound  themselves 
to  resist  all  further  extortions.  They  do  not,  however,  know  the 
man  they  have  to  deal  with ;  he  will,  perhaps,  find  out  some  to 
lay  claim  to  their  own  private  and  hereditary  property,  whom  he 
will  produce  and  support,  and  who  certainly  will  have  the  same 
right  to  pillage  them,  as  they  had  to  the  spoils  of  others. 

It  was  reported  in  our  fashionable  circles  last  autumn,  and 
amilcd  at  by  Talleyrand,  that  he  promised  the  Countess  de  L.  an 
abbey,  and  the  Baroness  de  S  •  z,  a  convent,  for  certain  per- 
sonal favours,  and  that  he  offered  a  bishopric  to  the  Princess  of 
H  i  on  the  same  terms  ;  but  this  lady  answered,  "  that  she 

would  think  of  his  offers  after  he  had  put  her  husband  in  posses- 
sion of  the  bishopric.'*  It  is  not  necessary  to  observe,  that  both 
the  Countess  and  the  Baroness  are  yet  waiting  to  enjoy  his  liberal 
donations,  and  to  be  indemnified  for  their  prostitution. 

Napolcone  Buonaparte  was  attacked  by  a  fit  of  jealousy  at 
Mentz.  The  young  nephew  of  the  Elector  Arch-Chancellor, 
Count  de  L— ge,  was  very  assiduous  about  the  Empress,  who, 
herself,  at  first  mistook  the  motive.  Her  confidential  secretary, 
Deschamps,  however,  afterwards  informed  her,  that  this  noble- 
man wanted  to  purchase  the  place  of  a  coadjutor  to  his  uncle, 
so  as  to  be  certain  of  succeeding  him.  He  obtained,  therefore, 
several  private  audiences,  no  doubt  to  regulate  the  price  ;  when 
Napoleone  put  a  stop  to  this  secret  negotiation,  by  having  the 
Count  carried  by  gens-d'armes,  with  great  politeness,  to  the  other 
side  of  the  Rhine.  When  convinced  of  his  error,  Buonaparte 
asked  his  wife  what  sum  had  been  proposed  for  her  protection, 
and  immediately  gave  her  an  order  on  his  minister  of  the  trea- 
sury, Marbois,  for  the  amount.  This  was  an  act  of  justice,  and 
a  reparation  worthy  of  a  good  and  tender  husband  ;  but  when,  the 
very  next  day,  he  recalled  this  order,  threw  it  into  the  fire  before 
her  eyes,  and  confined  her  for  six  hours  in  her  bed-room,  because 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  5t 

she  was  nol  dressed  time  enough  to  take  a  walk  "with  him  on  the 
ramparts,  one  is  apt  to  believe  that  military  despotism  has  erased 
from  his  bosom  all  connubial  affection  ;  and  that  a  momentary  ef- 
fusion of  kindness  and  generosity  can  but  little  alleviate  the  fre- 
quent pangs  caused  by  repeated  insults  and  oppression.  Fortu- 
nately, Madame  Napoleone*s  disposition  is  proof  against  rudeness 
as  well  as  against  brutality.  If  what  her  friend  and  consoler,  Ma- 
dame Dula9ay,  reports  of  her  is  not  exaggerated,  her  tranquillity 
is  not  much  disturbed,  nor  her  happiness  affected,  by  these  ex- 
plosions of  passionate  authority  ;  and  she  prefers  admiring  in  un- 
disturbed solitude  her  diamond  box,  to  the  most  beautiful  pros- 
pects in  the  most  agreeable  company;  and  she  inspects  wit'i 
more  pleasure  in  confinement  her  rich  wardrobe,  her  beautiful 
china,  and  her  heavy  plate,  than  she  would  find  satisfaction,  sur- 
rounded with  crowds,  in  contemplating  nature  even  in  its  utmost 
perfection.  "  The  paradise  of  Madame  Napoleone,"  says  her 
friend,  "  must  be  of  metal,  and  lighted  by  the  lustre  of  brilliants, 
else  she  would  decline  it  for  a  hell,  and  accept  Lucifer  himself 
for  a  spouse,  provided  gold  (lowed  in  his  infernal  domains, 
though  she  were  even  to  be  scorched  by  its  heat." 


LETTER  XIV. 

Paris,  August,  1805. 

>IT    LORD, 

I  BELIEVE  that  I  have  mentioned  to  you,  when  in  England, 
that  I  was  an  old  acquaintance  of  Madame  Napoleone,  and  a  vi- 
sitor at  the  house  of  her  first  husband.  When  introduced  to  her 
after  some  years  absence,  during  which,  fortune  had  treated  us 
very  differently,  she  received  me  with  more  civility  than  I  was 
prepared  to  expect ;  and  would,  perhaps,  have  spoken  to  me 
more  than  she  did,  had  not  a  look  of  her  husband  silenced  her. 
Madame  Louis  Buonaparte  was  still  more  condescending,  and  re- 
called to  my  memory,  what  I  had  not  forgotten,  how  often  she 
had  been  seated,  when  a  child,  on  my  lap,  and  played  on  my 
knees  with  her  doll.  Thus  they  behaved  to  me,  when  I  saw 
them  for  the  first  time  in  their  present  elevation ;  I  found  them, 
afterwards  in  their  drawing-rooms,  or  at  their  routs  and  parties, 
more  shy  and  distant.  This  change  did  not  much  surprise  me. 


5*  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

as  I  hardly  knew  any  one,  that  had  the  slightest  pretensions  to 
their  acquaintance,  who  had  not  troubled  them  for  employment) 
or  borrowed  their  money ;  at  the  same  time  that  they  complain- 
ed of  their  neglect,  and  their  breach  of  promises.  I  continued, 
however,  as  much  as  etiquette  and  decency  required,  assiduous-, 
but  never  familiar ;  if  they  addressed  me,  I  answered  with  re- 
spect, but  not  with  servility  ;  if  not,  I  bowed  in  silence  when  they 
passed.  They  might  easily  perceive  that  I  did  not  intend  to  be- 
some  an  intruder,  nor  to  make  the  remembrance  of  what  was  past* 
an  apology  or  a  reason  for  applying  for  present  favours.  A  lady," 
on  intimate  terms  with  Madame  Napoleone,  and  once  our  com- 
mon friend,  informed  me,  shortly  after  the  untimely  end  of  the 
lamented  Duke  d'Enghein,  that  she  had  been  asked,  whether 
she  knew  any  thing  that  could  be  done  for  me,  or  whether  I 
would  not  be  flattered  by  obtaining  a  place  in  the  Legislative 
Body,  or  in  the  Tribunate  ?  I  answered  as  I  thought,  that  were  I 
fit  for  a  public  life,  nothing  could  be  more  agreeable,  or  suit  me 
better ;  but  having  hitherto  declined  all  employments,  that  might 
restrain  that  independence,  to  which  I  had  accustomed  myself 
from  my  youth,  I  was  now  too  old  to  enter  upon  a  new  career. 
i  added,  that  though  the  Revolution  had  reduced  my  circum- 
stances, it  had  not  entirely  ruined  me.  I  was  still  independent, 
because  my  means  were  the  boundaries  of  my  wants. 

A  week  after  this  conversation,  General  Murat,  the  governor  of 
this  capital,  and  Buonaparte's ./oruowzVe  brother-in-law,  invited  me 
to  a  conversation,  in  a  note  delivered  to  me  by  an  aicle-de-camp, 
who  told  me  that  he  was  ordered  to  wait  for  my  company,  or, 
which  was  the  same,  he  was  ordered  not  to  lose  sight  of  me,  as 
I  was  his  prisoner.  Having  nothing  with  which  to  reproach 
myself,  and  all  my  written  remarks  being  deposited  with  a 
friend,  whom  none  of  the  Imperial  functionaries  could  suspect,  I 
entered  a  hackney  coach  without  any  fear  or  apprehension  ;  and 
we  drove  to  the  governor's  hotel. 

From  the  manner  in  which  General  Murat  addressed  me,  I 
was  soon  convinced,  that  if  I  had  been  accused  of  any  error  or  in- 
discretion, the  accusation  could  not  be  very  grave  in  his  eyes. 
He  entered  with  me  into  his  cabinet,  and  inquired  whether  I  had 
any  enemies  at  the  police  office  ?  I  told  him  not,  to  my  know- 
ledge. "  Is  the  police  minister  and  senator,  Fonche,  your  friend'" 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

'continued  he.  "  Fouche,"  said  I,  "has  bought  an  estate  that 
formerly  belonged  to  me  :  may  he  enjoy  it  with  the  same  peace 
of  mind  as  I  have  lost  it.  I  have  never  spoken  to  him  in  my  life." 
— "  Have  you  not  complained  at  Madame  de  la  Force's,  of  the 
execution  of  the  ci-devant  Duke  d'Enghein,  and  agreed,  with 
the  other  members  of  her  coterie,  to  put  on  mourning  for 
him." — "  I  have  never  been  at  the  house  of  that  lady  since 
the  death  of  the  Prince  ;  nor  more  than  once  in  my  life." — 
'"  Where  did  you  pass  the  evening  last  Saturday  ?" — "  At  the 
hotel,  and  in  the  assembly  of  Princess  Louis  Buonaparte." — Did 
she  see  you  ?"  "  I  believe  that  she  did,  because  she  returned  my 
salute." — "You  have  known  her  Imperial  Highness  a  longtime  ?" 
"  From  her  infancy." — "  Well,  I  congratulate  you.  You  have 
in  her  a  generous  protectress.  But  for  her,  you  would  now  have 
been  on  the  way  to  Cayenne.  Here  you  see  the  list  of  persons 
condemned  yesterday,  upon  the  report  of  Fouche,  to  transporta- 
tion. Your  name  is  at  the  head  of  them.  You  were  not  only 
accused  of  being  an  agent  of  the  Bourbons,  but  having  intrigued 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  or  of  the  Tribunate,, 
that  you  might  have  so  much  the  better  opportunity  to  serve 
them.  Fortunately  for  you,  the  Emperor  remembered,  that  the 
Princess  Louis  had  demanded  such  a  favour  for  you,  and  he  in- 
formed her  of  the  character  of  her  protege.  This  brought  for- 
ward your  innocence  ;  because  it  was  discovered  that,  instead  of 
asking  for,  you  had  declined,  the  offer  she  had  made  you  through 
the  Empress. — Write  the  Princess  a  letter  of  thanks.— -You  have 
indeed  had  a  narrow  escape,  but  it  has  been  so  far  useful  to  you,, 
that  government  is  now  aware  of  your  having  some  secret  enemy 
in  power,  who  is  not  delicate  about  the  means  of  injuring  you." 

In  quitting  General  Murat,  I  could  not  help  deploring  the  fate 
of  a  despot,  even  while  I  abhorred  his  unnatural  power.  The 
curses,  the  complaints,  and  reproaches  for  all  the  crimes,  all  the 
violence,  all  the  oppression  perpetrated  in  his  name,  are  entirely 
thrown  upon  him;  while  his  situation  and  occupation  do  not  ad- 
mit the  seeing  and  hearing  every  thing  and  every  body  himself; 
he  is  often  forced  therefore  to  judge,  according  to  the  report  of 
an  impostor  ;  to  sanction  with  his  name  the  hatred,  malignity,  or 
vengeance  of  culpable  individuals  ;  and  to  sacrifice  innocence  to 
gratify  the  vile  passions  of  his  vilest  slave,,  I  have  not  so  bad  an-, 
opinion  of  Buonaparte,  as  to  think  him  capable  of.  wilfully;  con=- 


54  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

cleraning  any  person  to  death  or  transportation,  of  whose  inno- 
cence lie  was  convinced,  provided  that  person  stood  not  in  the 
way  of  his  interest  and  ambition  ;  but  suspicion  and  tyranny  are 
inseparable  companions,  and  injustice  their  common  progeny, 
The  unfortunate  beings  on  the  long  list  General  Murat  showed 
me,  were,  I  dare  say,  most  of  them  as  innocent  as  myself,  and 
all  certainly  condemned  unheard.  But  suppose  even  that  they  had 
been  indiscreet  enough  to  put  on  mourning  for  a  prince  of  the 
blood  of  their  former  kings,  did  their  imprudence  deserve  the 
same  punishment  as  the  deed  of  the  robber,  the  forger,  or  the 
house-breaker  ?  and  indeed  it  was  more  severe  than  what  our 
laws  inflict  on  such  criminals,  who  are  only  condemned  to  trans- 
portation for  some  few  years,  after  a  public  trial  and  conviction  ; 
while  the  exile  of  these  unconvicted,  untried,  and  most  probably 
innocent  persons,  is  continued  for  life,  on  charges  as  unknown  to 
themselves,  as  their  destiny  and  residence  remain  to  their  fami- 
lies and  friends.  Happy  England  1  where  no  one  is  condemned 
unheard,  and  no  one  dares  attempt  to  make  the  laws  subservient* 
to  his.  passions  or  caprice.. 

As  to  Fouche's  enmity,  at  which  General  Murat  so  plainly 
hinted)  I  had  long  apprehended  it,  from  what  others,  in  similar 
circumstances  with  myself,  had  suffered.  He  has,  since  the  Re- 
volution, bought  no  less  than  sixteen  national  estates,  seven  of  the 
former  proprietors  of  which  have  suddenly  disappeared  since  his 
ministry,  probably  in  the  manner  he  intended  to  remove  me. 
This  man  is  one  of  the  most  immoral  characters  the  Revolution 
has  dragged  forward  from  obscurity.  It  is  more  difficult  to  men- 
tion a  crime  that  he  has  not  perpetrated,  than  to  discover  a  good 
or  just  action  that  he  ever  performed.  He  is  so  notorious  a  vil- 
lain, that  even  the  infamous  National  Convention  expelled  him 
from  its  bosom,  and  since  his  ministry  no  man  has  been  found 
base  enough,  in  my  debased  country,  to  extenuate,  much  less  to 
defend,  his  past  enormities.  In  a  nation  so  greatly  corrupted  and 
immoral,  this  alone  is  more  than  negative  evidence. 

As  a  friar  before  the  Revolution,  he  has  avowed,  in  his  corres- 
pondence with  the  National  Convention,  that  he  never  believed  in 
a  God  ;  and  as  one  of  the  first  public  functionaries  of  a  Republic, 
he  has  officially  denied  the  existence  of  virtue.  He  is  therefore 
a.s  unmoved  by  tears  as  by  repro?,ches?  and  as  inaccessible  to  re- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  55 

morse  as  hardened  against  repentance.  With  him  interest  and 
bribes  are  every  thing-,  and  honour  and  honesty  nothing.  The 
suppliant,  or  the  pleader,  who  appears  before  him  with  no  other 
support  than  the  justice  of  his  cause,  is  fortunate  indeed,  if,  after 
being  cast,  he  is  not  also  confined  or  ruined,  and  perhaps  both  ; 
while  a  line  from  one  of  the  Buonapartes,  or  a  purse  of  gold, 
changes  black  to  white,  guilt  to  innocence,  removes  the  scaffold 
waiting  for  the  assassin,  and  extinguishes  the  faggots  lighted  for 
the  parricide.  His  authority  is  so  extensive,  that,  on  the  least 
signal,  with  one  blow,  from  the  extremities  of  France  to  her  cen- 
tre, it  crushes  the  cot  and  the  palace  ;  and  his  decisions,  against 
which  there  is  no  appeal,  are  so  destructive,  that  they  never  leave 
any  traces  behind  them,  and  Buonaparte,  Buonaparte  alone,  caD 
prevent  or  arrest  their  effect. 

Though  a  traitor  to  his  former  benefactor,  the  ex-direcloK 
Bavras,  he  possesses  now  the  unlimited  confidence  of  Napoleons 
Buonaparte,  and,  as  far  as  is  known,  has  not  yet  done  any  thing 
to  forfeit  it ;  if  private  acts  of  cruelty  cannot,  in  the  agent  of  a  ty- 
rant, be  called  breach  of  trust  or  infidelity.  He  shares  with  Tal- 
leyrand the  fraternity  of  the  vigilant,  immoral  and  tormenting  se- 
cret police  ;  and  with  Real  and  Dubois,  the  prefect  of  police,  the 
reproduction,  or  rather  the  invention  of  new  tortures  and  im- 
proved racks  ;  the  oubliettes^  which  are  wells  or-  pits  dug  under 
the  Temple,  and  most  other  prisons,  are  the  works  of  his  owr> 
infernal  genius.  They  are  covered  with  trap  doors,  and  any  per- 
son whom  the  rack  has  mutilated,  or  not  obliged  to  speak  out  j 
whose  return  to  society  is  thought  dangerous,  or  whose  discre- 
tion is  suspected  ;  who  has  been  imprisoned  by  mistake,  or  dis- 
covered to  be  innocent ;  who  is  disagreeable  to  the  Buonapartes* 
their  favourites,  or  the  mistresses  of  their  favourites  ;  who  has 
displeased  Fouche,  or  offended  some  other  placeman  ;  any  who 
have  refused  to  part  with  their  property  for  the  recovery  of  their 
liberty,  are  all  precipitated  into  these  artificial  abysses — there  to 
be  forgotten ;  or  worse,  to  be  starved  to  death,  if  they  have  not 
been  fortunate  enough  to  break  their  neck,  and  be  killed  by  the 
fall. 

The  property  Fouche  has  acquired  by  his  robberies,  within 
these  last  twelve  years,  is,  at  the  lowest  rate,  valued  at  fifty  mil- 
lions of  livres,  (2,100,0001.)  which  must  increase  yearly  j  as  a  maij- 


i>6  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

who  disposes  of  the  liberty  of  fifty  millions  of  people,  is  also,  ia 
a  great  part,  master  of  their  wealth.  Except  the  chiefs  of  the 
governments,  and  their  officers  of  state,  there  exists  not  an  inha- 
bitant of  France,  Italy,  Holland,  or  Switzerland,  who  can  consi- 
der himself  secure  for  an  instant,  of  not  being  seized,  imprisoned, 
plundered,  tortured,  or  exterminated,  by  the  orders  of  Fouche, 
and  by  the  hands  of  his  agents. 

You  will  no  doubt  exclaim,  how  can  Buonaparte  employ,  how 
dares  he  confide  in  such  a  man  ?  Fouche  is  as  able  as  unprinci- 
pled, and  with  the  most  unfeeling  and  perverse  heart,  possesses 
great  talents.  There  is  no  infamy  he  will  not  stoop  to,  and  no 
crime,  however  execrable,  that  he  will  hesitate  to  commit,  if  his 
Sovereign  orders  it.  He  is  therefore  a  most  useful  instrument 
in  the  hand  of  a  despot,  who,  notwithstanding  what  is  said  to  the 
contrary  in  France,  and  believed  abroad,  would  cease  to  rule,  the 
day  he  became  just,  and  the  reign  of  laws  and  of  humanity  ban- 
ished terror  and  tyranny. 

It  is  reported  that  some  person,  pious  or  revengeful,  presented 
some  time  ago,  to  the  devout  mother  of  Napoleone,  a  long  me- 
morial, containing  some  particulars  of  the  crimes  and  vices  of 
Fouche  and  Talleyrand  ;  and  required  of  her,  if  she  wished  to 
prevent  the  curses  of  Heaven  from  falling  on  her  son,  to  inform 
him  of  them,  that  he  might  cease  to  employ  men  so  unworthy  of 
him,  and  so  offensive  to  religion.  Napoleone,  after  reading 
through  the  memorial,  is  stated  to  have  answered  his  mother, 
who  was  always  pressing  him  to  dismiss  these  ministers :  "  The 
memorial,  Madame,  contains  nothing  of  which  I  was  not  pre- 
viously informed.  Louis  XVI.  did  not  select  any  but  those 
whom  he  thought  the  most  virtuous  and  moral  of  men,  for  his 
ministers  and  counsellors  ;  and  where  did  their  virtues  and  mo- 
rality bring  him  ?  If  the  writer  of  the  memorial  will  mention  two 
honest  and  irreproachable  characters,  with  equal  talents,  and 
zeal  to  serve  me,  neither  Fouche  nor  Talleyrand  shall  again  be 
admitted  into  my  presence." 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  57 

LETTER  XV. 

Paris,  August^    1805, 

MY   LORD, 

YOU  have  with  some  reason,  in  England,  complained  of 
the  conduct  of  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps  in 
France,  when  the  pretended  correspondence  between  Mr.  Drake 
and  Mehee  de  la  Touche  was  published  in  our  official  gazette. 

Had  you  however,  like  myself,  been  in  a  situation  to  study  the 
characters,  and  appreciate  the  worth  of  most  of  them,  this  con- 
duct would  have  excited  no  surprise  ;  and  pity  would  have  taken 
the  place  both  of  accusation  and  reproach.  Hardly  one  of  them, 
except  Count  Philippe  de  Cobentzel,  the  Austrian  Ambassador 
(and  even  he  is  considerably  involved)  possesses  any  property,  or 
has  any  thing  else  but  his  salary  to  depend  upon  for  his  subsist- 
ence. The  least  offence  to  Buonaparte  or  Talleyrand  would  in- 
stantly deprive  them  of  their  places  ;  and,  unless  they  were  fortu- 
nate enough  to  obtain  some  other  appointment,  reduce  them  to 
live  in  obscurity,  and  perhaps  in  want,  upon  a  trifling  pension  in 
their  own  country. 

The  day  before  Mr.  Drake's  correspondence  appeared  in  the 
Moniteur,  in  March,  1804,  Talleyrand  gave  a  grand  diplomatic 
dinner  ;  in  the  midst  of  which,  as  was  previously  agreed  with 
Buonaparte,  Duroc  called  him  out  on  the  part  of  the  First  Con- 
sul. After  an  absence  of  near  an  hour,  which  excited  great  cu- 
riosity and  some  alarm  among  the  diplomatists,  he  returned  very 
thoughtful,  and  seemingly  very  low  spirited.  "  Excuse  me, 
gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  I  have  been  very  impolite,  against  my 
inclination.  The  First  Consul  knew  that  you  honoured  me  with 
your  company  to  day,  and  would  therefore  not  have  interrupted 
me  by  his  orders,  had  not  a  discovery  of  a  most  extraordinary  na- 
ture against  the  law  of  nations  just  been  made  ;  a  discovery  which 
calls  for  the  immediate  indignation  againstthe  cabinet  of  St.  James, 
not  only  of  France,  but  of  every  nation,  that  wishes  for  the  preser- 
vation of  civilized  society.  After  dinner  I  shall  do  myself  the 
honour  of  communicating  to  you  the  particulars,  well  convinced 
that  you  will  all  enter  with  warmth  into  the  just  resentment  of 
the  First  Consul."  During  the  repast,  the  bottle  went  freely 
rpviml,  nnd  as  soon  as  the  had  drank  their  rofiee  raid 


*«  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Talleyrand  rung  a  bell,  and  Hauterive  presented   himself,  with 
a  large  bundle  of  papers.      The  pretended  original  letters  of  Mr. 
Drake  were  handed  about,  with  the  commentaries  of  the  minis- 
ter and  his  secretary.     Their  heads  heated  with  wine,  it  was  not 
difficult  to  influence  their  minds,  or  to  mislead  their  judgment, 
and  they  exclaimed,  as  in  a  chorus,  C'est  abominable  I  Cela  fait 
fremir  I    Talleyrand  took  advantage  of  their  situation,  as  well  as 
of  their  indiscretion.     "  I  am  glad,  gentlemen,"    said  he,  "  and 
shall  not  fail  to  inform  the  First  Consul  of  your  unanimous  sen- 
liments  on  this  disagreeable  subject ;  but  verbal  expressions  are 
not  sufficient  in  an  affair  of  such    great  consequence.     I  have 
orders  to  demand  your  written  declarations,  which,  after   what 
you  have  already  expressed,  you  cannot  hesitate  about  sending 
to  me  to  night,  that  they  may  accompany  the  denunciation  w  hich 
the  First  Consul  dispatches  within  some  few  hours,  to  all  the 
courts  on  the  Continent.     You  would  much  please  the  First  Con- 
sul,  were  you  to  write  as  near  as  possible  according  to  the  for* 
rnula  which  my  secretary  has  drawn  up.     It  states  nothing  either 
against  con~uenance,    or  against  the  customs  of  sovereigns,  or  eti- 
quettes of  courts ;   and  I  am  certain,   is  also  perfectly   congenial 
with  your  individual   fee  ings."     A    silence  of  some  moments 
now  folio wed,( as  all  the  diplomatists  were  rather  taken  by  surprise, 
with  regard  to  a  written  declaration)  which  the  Swedish  ambas- 
sador, Baron  Ehrenswards,  interrupted  by  saying,  "  that  though 
he  personally  might  have  no  objection  to  sign  such  a  declaration, 
he  must  demand  some  time  to  consider  whether  he  had  a  right 
to  write  in  the  name  of  his  Sovereign,   without  his  orders,    on 
a  subject  still  unknown  to  him."     This   remark  made  the  Aus- 
trian ambassador,   Count  de  Cobentzel,  propose  a  private  con- 
sultation among  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps, 
at  one  of  their  hotels,  to  which  the  Russian  charge  d'affaires, 
d'Oubril,  who  was  not  at  the  dinner  party,  was  invited  to  assist. 
They  met  accordingly,  at  the  hotel  de  Montmorency,  rue  de 
J-ille,  occupied  by  Count  de  Cobentzel ;  but  they  came  to  no 
other  unanimous  determination,  than  that  of  answering  a  writ- 
ten communication  of  Talleyrand,   by  a  written  note,   according 
as  every  one  judged  most  proper,  and  prudent  and  correspond- 
ing with  the  supposed  sentiments  of  his  Sovereign. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  5S 

As  all  this  official  correspondence  has  been  published  in  Eng- 
land, you  may,  upon  reading  the  notes  presented  by  Baron  de 
Dreyer,  and  Mr.  Livingston,*  the  neutral  ambassadors  of  Den- 
mark and  America,  form  some  tolerably  just  idea  of  Talley- 
rand's formula.  Their  impolitic  servility  was  blamed  even  by 
the  other  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps. 

Livingston,  you  know,  and  perhaps  have  not  to  learn,  though 
a  staunch  republican  in  America,  was   the  most  abject  courtier 
in  France  :  and  though  a  violent  defender  of  liberty  and  equality 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  no  man  bowed  lower  to  usur- 
pation, or  revered  despotism  more  in  Europe.     Without  talents, 
and  almost  without  education,   he  thinks  intrigues  negotiations, 
and  conceives  that  policy  and  cupidity  are    synonymous.     He 
was  called  here  "  the  courier  of  Talleyrand,"  on  account  of  his 
voyages  to  England,  and  his   journeys  to   Holland  ;    where  this 
minister  sent  him   to  intrigue,  with  less  ceremony  than  one  of 
liis  secret  agents.     He  acknowledged  that  no  government  was 
more  liberal,   and  no  nation  more  free,  than  the  British  ;  but  he 
hated  the  one,  as  much  as  he  abused  the  other  ;   and  he  did  not 
conceal  sentiments  that  made  him  always  so  welcome  to  Buona- 
parte and  Talleyrand.  Never  over  nice  in  the  choice  of  his  com- 
panions, Arthur  O'Connor  and  other  Irish  traitors  and  vaga- 
bonds, used  his  house  as  their  own  ;    so  much  so,  that  when  he 
invited  other  ambassadors  to    dine  with  him,  they,   before  they 
accepted   the  invitation,  made  a   condition,    that  no  outlaws  or 
adventurers  should  be  of  the  party. 

In  your  youth,  Baron  de  Dreyer  was  an  ambassador  from  the 
court  of  Copenhagen  to  that  of  St.  James.  He  has  since  been 
in  the  same  capacity  to  the  courts  of  St.  Petersburgh  and  Madrid. 
Born  a  Norwegian,  of  a  poor  and  obscure  family,  he  owes  his  ad- 
vancement to  his  own  talents  ;  but  these,  though  they  have 
procured  him  rank,  have  left  him  without  a  fortune.  When  he 
•came  here  in  June,  1797,  from  Spain,  he  brought  a  mistress  with 


o 

i 


*  In  consequence  of  this  conduct,  Livingston  was  recalled  by  hs  go- 
vernment, and  lives  now  in  obscurity  and  disgrace  in  America.  To 
console  him,  however,  in  his  misfortune,  Buonaparte,  on  his  depar- 
ture, presented  him  with  his  portrait,  enamelled  on  the  lid  of  a  snuff-box, 
•set  round  with  diamonds,  and  valued  at  one  thousand  Louis  d'ors. 


•60  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

him,  and  several  children  lie  had  had  by  her,  during  his  resident  t 
in  that  country.  He  also  kept  an  English  mistress,  some 
thirty  years  ago  in  London,  by  whom  he  had  a  son,  M.  Guil- 
laumeau,  who  is  now  his  secretary.  Thus  encumbered,  and 
thus  situated,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  it  is  no  surprise  if  he  strives 
to  die  at  his  post ;  and  that  fear  to  offend  Buonaparte  and  Tal- 
leyrand sometimes  gets  the  better  of  his  prudence. 

In  Denmark,  as  well  as  in  all  other  Continental  States,  the 
pensions  of  diplomatic  invalids  are  more  scanty  than  those  of 
military  ones  ;  and  totally  insufficient  for  a  man,  who,  during 
nearly  half  a  century,  has  accustumed  himself  to  a  certain  style 
of  life,  and  to  expenses  requisite  to  represent  his  Prince  with 
dignity.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  Baron  de  Dreyer  prefers 
Paris  to  Copenhagen,  and  that  the  cunning  Talleyrand  takes  ad- 
vantage of  this  preference. 

It  was  reported  here  among  our  foreign  diplomatists,  that  the 
English  minister  in  Denmark,  complained  of  the  contents  of  Ba- 
ron de  Dreyer's  note,  concerning  Mr.  Drake's  correspondence  ; 
and  that  the  Danish  prime  minister,  Count  dc  Bernstorff,  wrote 
to  him  in  consequence,  by  the  order  of  the  Prince  Royal,  a  se- 
vere reprimand.  This  act  of  political  justice  is,  however,  de- 
nied by  him,  under  pretencx  'hut  the  cabinet  of  Copenhagen  has 
Jaid  it  down  as  an  invariable  rule,  never  to  reprimand,  but  al- 
ways to  displace  those  of  its  agents  with  whom  it  has  reason  to 
be  discontented.  Should  this  be  the  case,  no  Sovereign  in  Eu- 
rope is  better  served  by  Jus  representatives  than  his  Danish  Ma- 
jesty, because  no  one  seldomcr  changes  or  removes  them. 

While  I  am  speaking  of  diplomatists,  I  cannot  forbear  giving 
you  a  short  sketch  of  one,  whose  weight  in  the  scale  of  politics, 
entitles  him  to  particular  notice  :  I  mean  the  Count  de  Hang- 
•vvilz,  insidiously  complimented  by  Talleyrand,  with  the  title  of 
"  The  Prince  of  Neutrality,  the  Sully  of  Prussia."  Christian 
Henry  Curce,  Count  de  IL-.uywitz,  who,  until  lately,  has  been  the 
chief  director  of  the  political  conscience  of  his  Prussian  Majesty, 
as  his  minister  of  tiie  foreign  department,  wras  born  in  Siitsia,  and 
is  the  son  of  a  nobleman,  who  was  a  General  in  the  Austrian 
service,  when  Frederick  the  Great  made  the  conquest  of  that 
country.  At  the  death  of  this  King,  in  17b'6,  Count  de  Flaug- 
•wltz  occupied  an  inferior  place  in  the  foreign  office,  where  Count 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  \    6! 

de  Hertzbcrg  observed  his  zeal  and  assiduity,  and  ^commended 
him  to  the  notice  of  the  late  King,  Frederick  William  II.     By 
the  interest  of  the  celebrated  Beshopswerder,  he  procured,  in 
1792,  the  appointment  of  art  ambassador  to  the  court  of  Vienna, 
where  he  succeeded  Baron  de  Jacobi,  the  present  Prussian  minis- 
ter in  your  country.     In  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  he  went 
to  Ratisbon,  to  co-operate  with  the  Austrian  ambassador,  and  to 
persuade  the  Princes  of  the  German  empire  to  join  the  coalition 
against  France.     In  the  month  of  March,   1794,   he  was  sent  to 
the  Hague,  where  he  negotiated  with  Lord   Malmesbury  con- 
cerning the  affairs  of  France ;  shortly  afterwards  his  nomination 
as  a  minister  of  state  took  place  ;  and  from  that  time  his  political 
sentiments  seem  to  have  undergone  a  revolution,  for  which  it  is 
not  easy  to  account ;  but,  whatever  were  the  causes  of  his  change 
of  opinions,  the  treaty  of  Basle,  concluded  between  France  and 
Prussia,  in  1795,  was  certainly  negotiated  under  his  auspices  ; 
and  in  August,    1796,  he  signed,  with  the  French  minister  at 
Berlin,  citizen  Caillard,  the  first  and  famous  treaty  of  neutrality  ; 
and  a  Prussian  cordon  was  accordingly  drawn,  to  cause  the  neu- 
trality of  the  North  to   be  observed   and  protected.     Had  the 
Count  de  Haugwitz,  of  1795,  been  the  same  as  the  Count  de 
ll.uigwitz  of  1792,  it  is  probable  we  should  no  longer  have  heard 
of  either  a  French  republic,  or  a  French  empire  ;  but  a  legitimate 
Monarch  of  the  kingdom  of  France  would  have  insured  that  se- 
curity to  all  other  legitimate  Sovereigns,  the  want  of  which  they 
themselves,  or  their  children,  will   feel  and  mourn  in  vain,  as 
long  as  unlimited  usurpations  tyrannize  over  my  wretched  coun- 
try.    It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  the  good  sense  of  the  Count 
will  point  out  to  him,  before  it  is  too  late,  the  impolicy  of  his  pre- 
sent connections  ;  and  that  he  will  use  his   interest  with  his 
Prince,  to  persuade  him  to  adopt  a  line  of  conduct  suited  to  the 
grandeur  and  dignity  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  and  favourable 
to  the  independence  of  insulted  Europe. 

When  his  present  Prussian  Majesty  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
Count  de  .Haugwitz  continued  in  office,  with  increased  influence  ; 
but  he^sofrne  time  since  resigned,  in  consequence,  it  is  said,  of  a. 
difference  of  opinion  with  the  other  Prussian  ministers,  on  the 
subject  of  a  family  alliance,  which  Buonaparte  had  the  modesty  to 


62  SLXRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

propose  between  the  illustrious  house  of  Napoleone  the  First  and 
the  royal  line  of  Brancfenburgh. 

On  this  occasion,  his  King,  to  evince  his  satisfaction  with  his 
past  conduct,  bestowed  on  him  not  only  a  large  pension,  but  an 
estate  in  Silesia,  where  he  before  possessed  some  property. 
Buonaparte,  also,  to  express  his  regret  at  his  retreat,  proclaimed 
Hs  Excellency  a  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

Talleyrand  insolently  calls  the  several  cordons,  or  ribands,  dis- 
tributed by  Buonaparte  among  the  Prussian  ministers  and  gene- 
rals, "  his  leading-strings."  It  is  to  be  hoped,  that  Frederick 
"William  III.  is  sufficiently  upon  his  guard,  to  prevent  these 
strings  from  strangling  the  Prussian  Monarchy  and  the  Branden- 
burgh Dynasty. 


LETTER  XVI. 

Paris,  August,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

UPWARDS  of  two  months  after  my  visit  to  General  Murat, 
I  was  surprised  at  the  appearance  of  M.  Darjuson,  the  chamber- 
lain of  Princess  Louis  Buonaparte.  He  told  me  that  he  came  on 
the  part  of  Prince  Louis,  who  honoured  me  with  an  invitation  to 
dine  with  him  the  day  after.  Upon  my  inquiry,  whether  he 
knew  if  the  party  would  be  very  numerous,  he  answered,  be- 
tween forty  and  fifty,  and  that  it  was  a  kind  of  farewel  dinner  j  be- 
cause the  Prince  intended  shortly  to  set  out  for  Corapeignc,  to 
assume  the  command  of  the  camp  formed  in  its  vicinity,  of  the 
dragoons  and  other  light  troops  of  the  army  of  England. 

The  principal  personages  present  ut-this  dinner  were  Joseph 
Buonaparte,  and  his  wife ;  General  and  Madame  Murat ;  the  Mi- 
nisters,   Berthier,  Talleyrand,   Fouche,  Chaptal,    and  Portal  is. 
The  conversation  was  entirely  military,  and  ci,L:fly  related  to  ti.'j1 
probable  conquest  or  subjugation  of  Great  liiitian,  and  the 
bable  consequence  to  mankind  in  general  of  such  a  great  , 
No  difference  of  opinion  was  heard  with  regard  to  its  immediate 
benefit  to  France,  and  gradual  utility  to  all  other  nations  ;    but 
Berthier  seemed  to  apprehend,  that  before  France  could  have 
time  to  organize  this  valuable  conquest,  she  would  be  obliged  to 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  63 

support  another  war,  with  a  formidable  league,  perhaps  of  ail  oth- 
er European  nations.  The  issue,  however,  he  said,  would  be 
glorious  to  France,  who,  by  her  achicvments,  would  force  all  pec- 
pie  to  acknowledge  her  their  mother  country  ;  and  then  first  Eu- 
rope would  constitute  but  one  family. 

Chaptal  was  as  certain  as  every  body  else,  of  the  destruction  of 
the  tyrants  of  the  seas  ;  but  he  thought  France  would  never  be 
secure  against  the  treachery  of  modern  Carthage,  until  she  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  Home  towards  ancient  Carthage ;  and 
therefore,  after  reducing  London  to  ashes,  it  would  be  proper  to 
disperse  round  the  universe,  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  is- 
lands, and  to  re -people  them  with  nations  less  evil-disposed,  and 
less  corrupted.  Portalis  observed,  that  it  AVUS  more  easy  to  con- 
ceive than  to  execute  such  a  vast  plan.  It  would  not  be  an  un- 
dertaking of  five,  of  ten,  nor  of  twenty  years,  to  transplant  these 
nations  ;  that  misfortunes  aivd  prescription  would  not  only  inspire 
courage  and  obstinacy,  but  desperation.  "  No  people,"  continue  d 
he,  "  are  mere  attached  to  their  customs  and  countries  thr.n  Isl- 
anders in  general ;  and  though  British  subjects  are  the  greatest 
travellers,  and  found  every  where,  they  all  suppose  their  country 
the  best,  and  always  wish  to  return  to  it,  and  finish  their  days 
amidst  their  native  fogs  and  smoke.  Neither  the  Saxons  nor  the 
Danes,  nor  Norman  conquerors,  transplanted  them,  but  after  re- 
ducing? them,  incorporated  themselves  by  marriage  among  the 
vanquished  ;  and  in  some  few  generations,  were  but  one  people. 
It  is  asserted,  by  all  persons  who  have  lately  visited  Great  Britain, 
that,  though  the  civilization  of  the  lower  classes,  is  much  behind 
that  of  the  same  description  in  France,  the  higher  orders,  the 
rich  and  the  fashionable,  are,  with  regard  to  their  manners, 
more  French  than  English  ;  and  might  easily  be  cajoled  into  obe- 
dience and  subjection  to  the  sovereignty  of  a  nation,  whose  cus- 
toms by  free  choice  they  have  adopted  in  preference  to  their 
own  ;  and  whose  language  forms  a  necessary  part  of  their  ecu- 
cation  ;  and  indeed,  of  the  education  of  c.lmost  every  class  in  the 
British  empire.  The  universality  of  the  French  language  is  the 
best  ally  France  has  in  assisting  her  to  conquer  an  universal  do- 
minion. He  wished  therefore,  that  v.'hcn  we  were  in  a  situation, 
to  dictate  in  England,  instead  of  proscribing  Englishmen,  w-e 
should  proscribe  the  English  language;  ?.r,cl  advance  and  15- 


64,  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

ward  in  preference  all  those  parents,  whose  children  were  sent  to- 
be  educated  in  France,  and  all  those  families  who  voluntarily 
adopted  in  their  houses  and  societies  exclusively  the  French  lan- 
guage. Murat  was  afraid,  that  if  France  did  not  transplant  the 
most  stubborn  Britons,  and  settle  among  them  French  colonies, 
when  once  their  military  and  commercial  navy  was  annihilated, 
they  would  turn  pirates,  and  perhaps,  within  half  a  century,  lay 
all  other  nations  as  much  under  contribution  by  their  piracies, 
as  they  now  do  by  their  industry  ;  and  that,  like  the  pirates  on 
the  coast  of  Barbary,  the  instant  they  had  no  connexions  with 
other  civilized  nations,  cut  the  throats  of  each  other,  and  agree 
in  nothing  but  in  plundering,  and  considering  all  other  people  in 
the  world  their  natural  enemies  and  purveyors.  To  this  opinion 
Talleyrand,  by  nodding  assent,  seemed  to  adhere  ;  but  he  added, 
v'  Earthquakes  are  generally  dreaded  as  destructive,  but  such  a 
convulsion  of  nature  as  would  swallow  up  the  British  islands, 
with  all  their  inhabitants,  would  be  the  greatest  blessing  Provi- 
dence ever  conferred  on  mankind." 

Louis  Buonaparte  then  addressed  himself  to  me,  and  to  the 

Marquis  de  F :  "  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  you  have  been  in 

England  ;  what  is  your  opinion  of  the  character  of  these  island- 
ers, and  of  the  probability  of  their   subjugation  ?"   I  answered, 
that  during  the  fifteen  months   I  resided  in  London,  I  was  too 
much  occupied  to  prevent  myself  from  starving,  to  meditateiabcut 
any  thing  else  ;   that  my  stomach  was  my  sole  meditation,  as 
well  as  anxiety.    That,  however,  I  believed,  that  in  England,  as 
every  where  else,  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad  qualities  was  to  be 
found ;  but  which  prevailed,  would  be  presumption  in  me,  from 
my  position,  to  decide.     But  I  did  not  doubt,  thatif  we  cordial! j 
hated  the  English,  they  returned  us  the  compliment  with  inte- 
rest ;  and,  therefore,  the  contest  with  them  would  be   a  severe- 
one.     The  Marquis  de  F imprudently  attempted  to  con- 
vince the  company,  that  it  was  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  our 
army  to  land  in  England,  much  less  to  conquer  it,  until  we  were 
masters  of  the  seas  by  a   superior  navy.     He  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  still  more  indiscreet, had  not  Madame  Louis  imen'i.pt- 
cd  him,  and  given  another  turn  to  the  conversation,  by  inquiring 
about  the  fair  sex  in  England,  and  if  it  was  true,  that  handsome 
women  were  more  numerous  there  than  in  France:  Her; 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  65 

the  Marquis,  instead  of  paying  her  a  compliment,  as  she  perhaps 
expected,   roundly  assured    her,  that  for  one  beauty  in  France, 
hundreds  might  be  counted  in  England,  where  gentlemen  were 
therefore  not  so  easily  satisfied  ;  and  that  a  woman,  regarded  by 
them   only    as  an  ordinary    person,   would  pass  for  a  first  rate 
beauty  among-  French  beaux,  on  account  of  the  great  scarcity  of 
them  here. — "c  You  must  excuse  the  Marquis,  ladies,"  said  I  in 
my  turn  ;  "  he  has  not  been  in  love  in  England  ;  there,  perhaps, 
he  found  the  belles  less  cruel  than  in  France  ;  where,  for  the  cru- 
elty of  one  lady,  or  for  her  insensibility  of  his  merit,  he  revenges 
himself  on  the  whole   sex." — "  I  apply  to  M.  Talleyrand,"  an- 
swered the  Marquis  ;  "  he  has  been  longer  in  Etfgland  than  my- 
self."— "  I  am  not  a  competent  judge,"  retorted  the  minister  ; 
"  Madame  Talleyrand  is  here,  and  has  not  the  honour  of  being  a 
Frenchwoman  ;  but  I  dare  say,  the  Marquis  will  agree  with  me, 
that  in  no  society  in  the  British  island,  among  a  dozen  of  ladies, 
has  he  counted  more  beauties,  or  admired  greater  accomplish- 
ments, or  more  perfection."     To  tl.-is  the  Marquis  bowed  assent, 
saying,  that  in  all  his  genera!   remarks,  the  party  present    of 
course  was  not  included.   All  the  ladies,  who  were  well  acquaint- 
ed with  his  absent  and  blundering  conversation,  very  good-hu- 
mouredly  laughed  j  and  Madame  Murat  assured  him,  that  if  he 
would  give  her  the  address  of  the  be  lie  in  France,  who  had  trans- 
formed  a  gallant  Frenchman  into  a  chevalier  of  British  beauty, 
she  would  attempt  to  make  up  their  difference.  "  She  is  no  more,. 
"  Madame,"  answered  the  Marquis  ;  "  she    was  unfortunately 
guillotined  two  days  before" — (the  father  of  Madame  Louis,  he 
was  going  to  say,  when  Talleyrand  interrupted  him  with  a  signi- 
ficant look,  and  said)  "  before  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  you  mean." 
From  these  and  othi-r  traits  of  the  Marquis's  character,  you 
may  see  he  erred  more  from  absence  of  rnind  than  any  premedi- 
tation to  give  offence.    He  received,  however,  the  next  morning, 
a  Icttre  de  cachet  from  Fouche,  which  exiled  him  to  Blois,  and. 
forbade  him  to  return  to  Paris,  without  further  orders  from  the*- 
minister  of  police.     I  know  from  high  authority,  that  to  the  inter- 
ference of  Princess  Louis,  alone,  is  he  indebted  for  not  being  shut 
up  in  the  Temple,  and  perhaps  transported  to  our  colonies,  for 
having  depreciated  the  power  and   means  of  France  to  invade 
England.     1  am  perfectly  convinced,  that  none  of  those  who* 

G    2. 


66  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  'HIE 

spoke  en  the  subject  of  the  invasion,  expressed  any  thing  biu 
what  they  really  thought;  and  that  of  the  whole  party,  none,  ex- 
cept Talleyrand,  the  marquis,  and  myself,  entertained  the  least 
doubt  of  the  success  of  the  expedition  ;  so  iirmly  did  they  rely 
on  the  former  fortune  of  Buonaparte,  his  boastings,  and  l.is  as- 
surance. 

After  dinner,  I  had  an  opportunity  of  conversing  for  ten  mi- 
nutes, with  Madame  Louis  Buonaparte,  whom  I  found  extremely 
amiable  ;  but  I  fear  that  she  is  not  happy.  Her  husband, 
though  the  most  stupid,  is  however  the  best  tempered  of  the 
Buonapartes,  and  seemed  very  attentive  and  attached  to  her.  She 
was  far  advanced  in  her  pregnancy,  and  looked  notwithstanding 
uncommonly  well.  I  have  heard  that  Louis  is  inclined  to  ine- 
briation, and,  when  in  that  situation,  is  very  brutal  to  his  wife, 
and  very  indelicate  with  other  women  before  her  eyes.  He  in- 
trigues with  her  own  servants  ;  and  the  number  of  his  illegiti- 
mate children  is  said  to  be  as  many  as  his  years.  She  asked  Ge- 
neral Murat,  to  present  me  and  recommend  me  to  Fouche, 
which  he  did  with  great  politeness,  and  the  minister  assured  me, 
that  he  should  be  glad  to  see  me  at  his  hotel  ;  which  I  much 
doubt.  The  last  word  Madame  Louis  said  to  me,  in  showing 
me  a  princely  crown  richly  set  with  diamonds,  and  given  her  by 
her  father-in-law^  Napoleone,  were,  "  Alas  !  grandeur  is  not  al- 
ways happiness,  nor  the  most  elevated  the  most  fortunate  lot." 


LETTER    XVII. 

Pa ;•<••?,  August^    1805. 

THE  arrival  of  the  Pope  in  this  country  was  certainly  a  grand 
epoch,  not  only  in  the  history  of  the  Revolution,  but  in  the  annals 
of  Europe.  The  debates  in  the  sacred  college  for  and  against 
this  journey,  and  for  and  against  his  coronation  of  Buonaparte, 
are  said  to  have  been  long  as  well  as  violent ;  and  only  arranged 
according  to  the  desires  of  Cardinal  Fesch,  by  the  means  of  four 
millions  of  livres,  166,000/.  distributed  a-propos  among  its  pious 
members.  Oi  this  money , the  Cardinals  Mattel,  Pamphili,  Dugnuni, 
Maury,  Pignatelli,  Roverella,  Somaglia,  Pacca,  Brancadoro,  Lit- 
ta,  Gabriellij  Spina,  Despuig,  and  Galeffi,  are  said  to.  have  shured 


COURT  Or   ST.  CLOUD.  67 

the  greatest  part ;  and,  from  the  most  violent  anli-Buonapartists, 
they  instantly  became  the  strenuous  adherents  of  Napoleone  the 
First ;  who,  of  course,  cannot  be  ignorant  of  their  real  worth. 

The  person  entrusted  by  Buonaparte  and  Talleyrand  to  carry 
on  at  Rome  the  intrigue  which  sent  Pius  VII.  to  cross  the  Alps, 
was  Cardinal  Fesch,  brother  of  Madame  Lxtitia  Buonaparte,  by 
the  side  of  her  mother,  who,  in  a  second  marriage,  chose  a  pedlar 
of  the  name  of  "Nicolo  Fesch,  for  her  husband. 

Joseph,  Cardinal  Fesch,  was  born  at  Ajaccio  in  Corsica,  on  the 
Uh  of  March,  1763,  and  was  in  his  infancy  received  as  a  singing    * 
boy,  (euf.mt  de  chaur)    in  a  convent    of  his  native  place.     In 
1782,  whilst  he  was  on  a  visit  to  some  of  his  relations,  in  the  island 
of  Sardinia,  being  on  a  fishing  party  some  distance  from  shore, 
he  was,  with  his  companions,  captured  by  an  Algerine  felucca* 
and  carried   a  captive  to  Algiers.     Here  he  turned  Mussulman, 
and,  until  1790,  was  a  zealous  believer  in,  and  professor  of,  the 
Alcoran.     In  that  year,  he  found  an  opportunity  to  escape  from 
Algiers,  and  to  return  to  Ajaccio,  when-  he  abjured  his  renegacy, 
exchanged   the  Alcoran  for  the  Bible,  and  in  1791  was  made  a 
constitutional    curate,  that  is  to   say,   a  revolutionary  Christian 
priest.     In  1793,  when  even  those  were  proscribed,  he  renounc- 
ed the  sacristy  of  lus  church  for  the  bar  of  a  tavern,  where,  dur- 
ing 1794  ffcid  1795,  he  gained  a  small  capital  by  the  number  and 
liberality  of  his  Lnglish  customers.     After  the  victories  of  his  ne- 
phew, Napoleone,  in  Italy,  during  the  following  year,  he  was  ad- 
vised to  reassume  the  clerical  habit ;  and  after  Napoleone's  procla- 
mation of  a   First  Consul,    he  was  made  Archbishop  of  Lyons. 
»    In  1802,  Pius  VII.  decorated  him  with  the  Roman  purple;  and 
lie  is  now  a  pillar  of  the  Roman  faith,  in  a  fair  way  of  seizing 
the  Roman  tiara.     If  letters  from  Rome  can  be  depended  upon, 
Cardinal  Fesch,  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  in- 
formed  his  Holiness  the  Pope,  that  he  must  either  retire  to  a 
convent,  or  travel  to  France,  either  abdicate  his  own  sovereignty, 
or  inaugurate    Napoleone    the   First  a   Sovereign    of  France. 
Without  the  decision  of  the  sacred  college,  effected  in  the  man- 
ner already  stated,  the  majority  of  the  faithful  believe  that  this 
Pontiff  would  have  preferred  obscurity  to  disgrace. 

While  Joseph  Fesch  was  a  master  of  a  tavern,  he  married  the 
daughter  of  a  tinker,  by  whom  he  had  three  children.     This  mar- 


68  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

riage,  according  to  the  republican  regulations,  had  only  been  ce- 
lebrated by  the  municipality  at  Ajaccio.     Fetich,  therefore,  upon 
again  entering  the  bosom  of  the  church,  left  his  municipal  wife 
and  children  to  shift   for  themselves,    considering  himself  still, 
according  to  the    canonical  "laws,   a  bachelor.      But   Madame 
Fesch,  hearing,  in  1801,  of  herci-dci'ant  husband's  promotion,  to 
the  Archbishopric  of  Lyons,    wrote  to  him  for  some  succours, 
being,  with  her  children,  reduced  to  great  misery.     Madame  La> 
titia  Buonaparte  answered   her  letter,  inclosing    a  draft  of  six 
hundred  iivres,  25/.  informing  her,  that  the  same  sum  would  be, 
paid  her  every  six  months,  as  long  as   she  continued  with  her 
children,  to  reside  at  Corsica  ;  but  that  it  would  cease  the  instant 
she  left  that  island.     Either  thinking  herself  not  sufficiently  paid 
for  her  discretion,  or  enticed  by  s  me  enemy  of  the  Buonaparte 
family,  she  arrived  secretly  at  Lyons  in  October  last  year,  where 
she  remained  unknown  till  the  arrival  of  the  Pope.     On  the  first 
day  his  Holiness  gave  there  his  public  benediction,   she  found 
means  to  pierce  the  crowd,  and  to  approach  his  person,  when  Car- 
dinal Fesch  was  by  his  side.     Profiting  by  a  moment's  silence, 
she  called  out  loudly,  throwing  herself  at  his  feet :  "  Holy  Fa- 
ther !  I  am  the  lawful  wife  of  Cardinal  Fesch,  and  these  are  our 
children  ;  he  cannot,  he  dares  not,  deny  this  truth.     Had  he  be- 
haved liberally  to  me,  I  should  not   have  disturbed  him  in   his 
present  grandeur;  I  supplicate  you,  Holy  Father,  not  to  restore 
me  my  husband,  but  to  force  him  to  provide  for  1  i«  wife   and 
children,  according  to  his  present  circumstances."  "Malta — eUa  e 
rnatta,  aantissimo  ftadre  /  She   is  mad — ^she  is  mad — Holy  Fa- 
ther," said  the  Cardinal ;   and  the  good  Pontiff  ordered  her  to  be 
taken  care  of,  to  prevent  her  from  doing  herself  or  the  children 
any    mischief.     She  was,  indeed,    taken   care  of,   because  no- 
body ever  since  heard  what  has  become   either  of  her  or  her 
children  ;  and  as  they  have  not  returned  to  Corsica,  probably  some 
snug  retreat  has  been  allotted  them  in  France. 

The  purple  was  never  disgraced  by  a  greater  libertine  than 
Cardinal  Fesch  :  his  amours  are  numerous,  and  have  often  in- 
volved him  in  disagreeable  scrapes.  He  had  in  1803  an  unplea- 
sant adventure  at  Lyons,  which  has  since  made  his  stay  in  that 
city  but  short.  Having  thrown  his  handkerchief  at  the  wife  of  a. 
manufacturer  of  the  name  of  Girot,  she  accepted  it  j  and  gave 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  6d 

Mm  an  appointment  nt  her  house,  at  a  time  in  the  evening,  when 
her  husband  usually  went  to  the  play.  His  Eminence  arrived  in 
disguise,  and  was  received  with  open  arms.  But  he  was  hardly 
seated  by  her  side,  before  the  door  of  a  closet  was  burst  open, 
and  his  shoulders  smarted  from  the  lashes  inflicted  by  an  offend- 
ed husband.  In  vain  did  he  mention  his  name  and  rank ;  they 
rather  increased  than  decreased  the  fury  of  Girot,  who  pretend- 
ed it  was  utterly  impossibe  for  a  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  to  be 
thus  overtaken  with  the  wife  of  one  of  his  flock ;  at  last  Madame 
Girot  proposed  a  pecuniary  accommodation,  which,  after 
some  opposition,  was  acceded  to ;  and  his  Eminence  signed  a 
bond  for  one  hundred  thousand  livres,  4,000/.  upon  condition 
that  nothing  should  transpire  of  this  intrigue— a  high  price  e- 
nough  for  a  sound  drubbing.  On  the  clay  when  the  bond  was 
due,  Girot  and  his  wife  were  both  arrested  by  the  police 
commissary,  Dubois,  (a  brother  of  the  prefect  of  police  at  Paris) 
accused  of  being  connected  with  coiners,  a  capital  crime  at 
present  in  this  country.  In  a  search  made  in  their  house,  bad 
money  to  the  amount  of  three  thousand  livres,  125/.  was  disco- 
vered ;  which  they  had  received  the  day  before  from  a  man  who 
called  himself  a -merchant  from  Paris,  but  who  was  a  police  spy 
sent  to  entrap  them.  After  giving  up  the  bond  of  the  Cardinal, 
the  Emperor  graciously  remitted  the  capital  punishment,  upon 
condition  that  they  should  be  transported  for  life  to  Cayenne. 

This  is  the  prelate  on  whom  Buonaparte  intends  to  confer  the 
Roman  tiara,  and  to  constitute  a  successor  of  St.  Peter.  It 
would  not  be  the  least  remarkable  event,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
remarkable  nineteenth  century,  were  we  to  witness  the  Papal 
throne  occupied  by  a  man,  who,  from  a  singing  boy,  became  a 
renegado  slave,  from  a  Mussulman  a  constitutional  curate  ; 
from  a  tavern-keeper  an  archbishop  ;  from  the  son  of  a  pedlar, 
the  uncle  of  an  Emperor;  and  from  the  husband  of  the  daughter 
of  a  tinker,  a  member  of  the  sacred  college. 

His  sister,  Madame  Ltetitia  Buonaparte,  presented  him,  in 
1802,  with  an  elegant  library,  for  which  she  had  paid  six  hun- 
dred thousand  livres,  25,000/.  and  his  nephew  Napoleone  allows 
him  a  yearly  pension  double  that  amount.  Besides  his  dignity  as 
a  prelate,  his  Eminence  is  ambassador  from  France  at  Rome,  a 
ht  of  the  Spanish  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  a  grand  officer 


70  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and  a  grand  ajmoner  of  the  Emperor 
of  the  French. 

The  Archbishop  of  Paris  is  now  b*  his  ninety-sixth  year  ;  and 
at  his  death,  Cardinal  Fesch  is  to  be  transferred  to  the  see  of 
tliis  capital,  in  expectation  of  tl>c  triple  crown,  and  the  keys  of  St; 
Peter. 


LETTER    XVIII. 

Paris,  .lugiisf,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  amiable  and  accomplished  Amelia-Frederique,  Princess 
Dowager  of  the  late  Electoral  Prince  Charles  Louis  of  Baden, 
born  a  Princess  of  Hesse-Darmstadt,  has  procured  the  Electoral 
House  *of  Baden,  the  singular  honour  of  giving  consorts  to  three 
reigning  and  sovereign  Princes;  to  an  Emperor  of  Russia,  to  a 
King  of  Sweden,  and  to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria.  Such  a  dis- 
tinction, and  such  alliances,  called  the  attention  of  those  at  the 
head  of  our  Revolution  ;  who,  after  attempting  in  vain  to  blow  up 
hereditary  thrones,  by  the  aid  of  sans-culottes  incendiaries,  seat- 
ed sans-culottes  upon  thrones,  that  they  might  degrade  what  was 
not  yet  ripe  for  destruction. 

Charles  Frederick,  the  reigning  Elector  of  Baden,  is  now  near 
fourscore  years  of  age.  At  this  period  of  life,  if  any  passions 
remain,  avarice  is  more  common  than  ambition ;  because 
treasures'may  be  hoarded  without  bustle,  while  activity  is  absolute- 
ly necessary  to  push  forward  to  the  goal  of  distinction.  Hav- 
ing bestowed  a  new  King  on  Tuscany,  Buonaparte  and  Talley- 
rand also  resolved  to  confer  new  Electors  on  Germany.  A  more 
advantageous  fraternity  coulcl  not  be  established  between  the  in- 
novators here,  and  their  opposers  in  other  countries,  than  by  in- 
corporating the  grand  father-jui-law  of  so  many  Sovereigns  wuh 
their  own  revolutionary  brotherhood ;  to  humble  him  by  a  new 
rank,  and  to  disgrace  him  by  indemnities  obtained  from  their 
hands.  An  intrigue  between  our  minister,  Talleyrand,  and  the 
Baden  minister,  Edclsheiii),  transformed  the  oldest  Margrave  of 
Germany  into  its  youngest  Elector  ;  and  extended  his  doimn* 
ions  by  the  spoils  obtained  at  the  expense  of  the  rightful  owners. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  71 

rhe  invasion  of  the  Baden  territorv  in  time  of  peace,  and  the 
seizure  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien,  though  under  the  protection 
of  the  laws  of  nations  and  hospitality,  must  have  soon  convinced 
Baron  Edelahiem  what  return  \\\& friend  Talleyrand  expected: 
and  that  Buonaparte  thought  he  had  a  natural  right  to  insult,  by 
his  attacks,  those  he  had  dishonoured  by  Ms  connexions. 

This  minister,  Baron  Edelsheim,  is  half  an  illuminate,  half 
a  philosopher,  half  a  politician,  and  half  a  revolutionist,  lie 
was,  long  before  he  was  admitted  into  the  council  chamber  of  his 
prince,  half  an  atheist,  half  an  intriguer,  and  half  a  spy,  in  the 
pay  of  Frederic  the  Great  of  Prussia.  His  entry  upon  the  stage 
at  Berlin,  and  particularly  the  first  parts  lie  was  destined  to 
act,  was  curious  and  extraordinary  :  whether  he  acquitted  him- 
self better  in  this  capacity  than  he  has  since  in  his  political  one, 
is  not  known.  He  was  afterwards  sent  to  this  capital,  to  exe- 
cute a  commission,  of  which  he  acquitted  himself  very  ill ;  ex- 
posing himself  rashly,  without  profit  or  service  to  his  employer. 
Frederic  II.  dreading  the  tediousness  of  a  proposed  Congress  at 
Augsbourgh,  wished  to  send  a  private  emissary  to  scund  the 
King  of  France.  For  this  purpose  he  chose  Edelsheim  as  a 
person  least  liable  to  suspicion.  The  picket  of  Frederic  wus  to 
indemnify  the  King  of  Poland  for  his  first  losses,  by  robbing  the 
ecclesiastical  Princes  of  Germany.  Tins  Louis  XV.  totally  re- 
jected;  and  Edelsheim  returned  \yitii  his  answer  to  the  Prussian 
Monarch,  then  at  Freyberg.  From  thence  he  afterwards  depart- 
ed for  London,  made  his  communications,  and  was  once  again 
sent  back  to  Palis,  on  pretence  that  he  had  left  some  of  his  tra- 
velling trunks  there  ;  and  the  Builii  de  Fouley,  the  ambassador 
of  the  Knights  of  M:\lta,  b^bvr  persuaded  that  the  cabinet  of  Ver- 
sailles was  effectually  cl-jsuous  of  peace,  was,  as  he  had  been  be- 
fore, the  mediator.  Tue  ii.Ji.i  was  deceived.  The  Duke  de 
cul,  the  then  prime  minister,  indecently  enough,  threw 
Edelsheim  into  the  Bastille,  in  order  to  search  or  seize  his  papers  ; 
which,  however,  were  secured  elsewhere.  Edelsheim  was  re- 
lease*:! on  the  morrow,  but  obliged  to  depart  the  kingdom  by  the 
way  of  Turin,  as  related  by  Frederic  II.  in  his  History  of  the 
Seven  Years  War.  On  his  return  he  was  disgraced  and  conti- 
nued so  until  1778,  when  he  again  was  used  as  emissary  to  va- 
rious courts  of  Germany.  In  1 736,  the  Elector  of  Baden  sent  him 


72  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

to  Berlin,  on  the  accession  of  Frederic  William  II.  as  a  compli- 
mentary envoy.  This  monarch,  when  he  saw  him,  could  not 
forbear  laughing  at  the  high  wisdom  of  the  court  that  selected 
such  a  personage  for  such  an  embassy,  and  of  his  own  sagacity 
in  accepting  of  it.  He  quitted  the  capital  of  Prussia  as  he  came 
there,  with  an  opinion  of  himself,  that  neither  the  royal  smiles 
of  contempt  had  altered  or  diminished. 

You  see  by  this  account  that  Edelsheim  has  long  been  a  parti- 
san of  the  pillage  of  Germany,  called  indemnities  ;  and  long  ha- 
bituated to  affronts,  as  well  as  to  plots.  To  all  his  other  half- 
qualities,  half-modesty  can  hardly  be  added  when  he  calls  him- 
self, or  suffers  himself  to  be  called,  "  the  Talleyrand  of  Carls- 
ruhe."  He  accompanied  his  Prince  last  year  to  Mentz ;  where 
this  old  Sovereign  was  not  treated  by  Buonaparte  in  the  most 
decorous  or  decent  manner,  being  obliged  to  wait  for  hours  in 
his  antichamber,  and  afterwards  stand  during  the  levees,  in  the 
drawing  rooms  of  Napokone,  or  of  his  wife,  without  the  offer  of 
a  chair,  or  an  invitation  to  sit  down.  It  was  here  where,  by  a 
secret  treaty,  Buonaparte  became  the  Sovereign  of  Baden,  if  so- 
vereignty consists  in  the  disposal  of  the  financial  and  military  re- 
sources of  a  state  ;  and  they  were  agreed  to  be  assigned  over  to 
him,  whenever  he  should  deem  it  proper  or  necessary  to  invade 
the  German  Empire,  in  return  for  his  protection  against  the 
Emperor  of  Germany,  who  can  have  no  more  interest  than  in- 
tent to  attack  a  country  so  distant  from  his  hereditary  dominions, 
and  whose  Sovereign  is  besides  the  grandfather  of  the  consort  of 
liis  nearest  and  best  ally. 

Talleyrand  often  amused  himself  at  Mentz  with  playing  on 
the  vanity  and  affected  consequence  of  Edelsheim,  who  was  de- 
lighted, if  at  any  time  our  minister  took  him  aside,  or  whispered 
to  him  as  in  confidence.  One  morning,  at  the  assembly  of  the 
Elector  Arch-Chancellor,  where  Edelsheim  was  creeping  and 
cringing  about  him  as  usual,  he  laid  hold  of  his  arm,  and  walk- 
ed with  him  to  the  upper  part  of  the  room.  In  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  they  both  joined  the  company,  Edelsheim  unusually  puffed 
up  with  vanity.  "  I  will  lay  any  bet,  gentlemen,"  said  Talleyrand, 
"  that  you  c  mnot,  with  all  your  united  wits,  guess  the  grand 
subject  of  my  conversation  with  the  grand  Baron  Edelsheim." 
Without  waiting  for  an  answer,  he  continued :  "  As  the  Baron 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

is  a  much  older  and  more  experienced  traveller  than  myself,  I 
asked  him  which,  of  all  the  countries  he  had  visited,  could  boast 
the  prettiest  and  kindest  women.  His  reply  w>is  really  very  in- 
structive, and  it  would  be  a  great  pity  if  justice  were  -not  done  to 
his  merit  by  its  publicity."  Here  the  Baron,  red  as  a  turkey- 
cock,  and  trembling  with  anger,  interrupted — "  His  Excellence," 
said  he,  4  is  to-night  in  a  humour  to  joke ;  what  he  spoke  of 
had  nothing  to  do  with  women."  "  Nor  with  men,  neither,"  re- 
torted Talleyrand,  going  away.  This  anecdote  Baron  Dahlbsrg, 
the  minister  of  the  Elector  of  Baden  to  our  court,  had  the  frank- 
ness to  relate  at  Madame  Chapui's,  as  an  evidence  of  Edel- 
e'leim's  intimacy  with  Talleyrand  j  he  only  left  out  the  latter  part, 
and  forgot  to  mention  the  bad  grace  with  which  this  impertinence 
of  Talleyrand  was  received  ;  but  this  defect  of  memory  Count 
•de  Beust,  the  envoy  of  the  Elector  Arch-Chancellor,  kindly  sup- 
plied. 

Baron  Edelsheim  is  a  great  amateur  of  knighthoods..  On 
days  of  great  festivities  his  face  is  as  it  were  illuminated  with  the 
lustre  of  his  stars  ;  and  the  crosseson  his  coat  conceal  almost  its 
original  colour.  Every  petty  Prince  of  Germany  has  dubbed  him 
a  chevalier ;  but  Emperors  and  Kings  have  not  been  so  unani- 
mous in  distinguishing  his  desert,  or  in  satisfying  his  desires. 

At  Mentz,  no  prince  or  minister  fawned  more  assiduously  upon 
Buonaparte,  than  this  hero  of  chivalry.  It  could  not  escape  no- 
tice, but  need  not  have  alarmed  our  great  man^  as  was  the 
r.ase.  The  prefect  of  the  palace  was  ordered  to  give  authentic  in- 
formation concerning  Edelsheim's  moral  and  political  character. 
He  applied  to  the  police  commissary,  who,  within  twenty  hours, 
signed  a  declaration,  aflirming  that  Edelsheim  vras  the  most  inof- 
fensive and  least  dangerous  of  all  imbecile  creatures  that  ever  en* 
tered  the  cabinet  of  a  Prince  ;  that  he  had  never  drawn  a  sword, 
Avorn  a  dagger,  or  fired  a  pistol  in  his  life  ;  that  the  inquiries  a- 
bout  his  real  character  were  sneered  at  in  every  part  of  the  Elec- 
torate ;  as  nowhere  they  allowed  him  common  sense,  much  less 
a  character  ;  all  blamed  his  presumption,  but  none  defended  his 
capacity. 

After  the  perusal  of  this  report,  Buonaparte  asked  Talleyrand, 
"  What  can  Edelsheim  mean  by  his  troublesome  assiduities  ?  does 
he  want  any  indemnities,  or  does  he  "wish  me  to  make  him  a 


74  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

German  Prince  ?  Can  he  have  the  impudence  to  hope  that  1 
should  appoint  him  a  tribune,  a  legislator,  or  a  senator  in  France, 
or  that  I  would  give  him  a  place  in  my  council  of  state  ?"  "  No 
such  thing,"  answered  the  minister ;  "  did  not  your  majesty 
condescend  to  notice,  at  the  last  fete,  that  this  eclipsed  moon  was 
encompassed  in  a  firmament  of  stars.  You  would,  Sire,  make 
him  the  happiest  of  mortals,  were  you  to  nominate  him  a  mem- 
ber of  your  Legion  of  Honour."  "  Does  he  want  nothing  else  •?" 
said  Napoleone,  as  if  relieved  at  once  from  an  oppressive  burden : 
"  write  to  my  chancellor  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  Lacepede,  to 
send  him  a  patent,  and  do  you  inform  him  of  this  favour." 

It  is  reported  at  Calrushe,  the  capital  of  Baden,  that  Baron 
Edelsheim  has  composed  his  own  epitaph,  in  which  he  claims 
immortality,  because,  under  his  ministry,  the  Margravate  of 
Baden  was  elevated  into  an  Electorate  ! !  ! 


LETTER  XIX. 

JParisj   August,   1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  sensation  that  the  arrival  of  the  Pope  in  this  country 
caused  among  the  lower  classes  of  people,  cannot  he  expressed  ; 
and,  if  expressed,  would  not  be  believed.  I  am  sorry,  however, 
to  say  that,  instead  of  improving  their  morals,  or  increasing 
their  faith,  this  journey  has  shaken  both  morality  and  religion  to 
their  foundation. 

According  to  our  religious  notions,  as  you  must  know,  the 
Roman  Pontiff  is  the  vicar  of  Christ,  and  infallible  ;  he  can  never 
err.  The  Atheists  of  the  National  Convention,  and  the  Theo- 
philanthropists  of  the  Directory,  not  only  denied  his  demi-divin- 
ity,  but  transformed  him  into  a  satyr  ;  and  in  pretending  to  tear 
the  veil  of  superstition,  annihilated  all  belief  in  a  God.  The  ig- 
norant part  of  our  nation,  which,  as  every  where  else,  constitutes 
the  majority,  witnessing  the  impunity  and  prosperity  of  crime, 
and  bestowing  on  the  Almighty  the  passions  of  mortals,  first 
doubted  of  his  omnipotence  in  not  crushing  guilt,  and  afterwards 
of  his  existence,  in  not  exterminating  the  blasphemers  from 
among  the  living.  Feeling,  however,  the  want  of  consolation  in 
their  misfortunes  here,  and  hope  of  a  reward  hereafter  for  unme- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  73 

rited  suffering  upon  earth,  they  all  hailed,  as  a  blessing,  the  re- 
storation of  Christianity  ;  and,  by  this  jiolitical  act,  Buonaparte 
gained  more  adherents,  than  by  all  his  victories  he  had  procured 
admirers. 

Buonaparte's  character,  his  good  and  his  bad  qualities,  his  ta- 
lents and  his  crimes,  are  too  recent  and  too  notorious  to  require 
description.  Should  he  continue  successful,  and  be  attended  by 
fortune  to  his  grave,  future  ages  may,  perhaps,  hail  him  a  hero 
and  a  great  man  ;  but  by  his  contemporaries  it  will  always  be 
doubtful,  whether  mankind  has  not  suffered  more  from  his  am- 
bition and  cruelties,  than  benefited  by  his  services.  Had  he  sa- 
tisfied himself  by  continuing  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  common- 
wealth, or,  if  he  judged  that  a  monarchical  government  alone  was 
suitable  to  the  spirit  of  this  country,  had  he  recalled  our  legiti- 
mate king,  he  would  have  occupied  the  principal,  if  not  the 
first  place  in  the  history  of  France  ;  a  place  much  more  exalted 
than  he  can  ever  expect  to  fill  as  an  Emperor  of  the  French  :  k-t 
his  prosperity  be  ever  so  uninterrupted,  he  cannot  be  mentioned 
but  as  an  usurper  ;  an  appellation  never  exciting  esteem,  fre- 
quently inspiring  contempt,  and  always  odious. 

The  crime  of  usurpation  is  the  greatest  and  most  enormous  a 
subject  can  perpetrate ;  but  what  epithet  can  there  be  given  to 
him,  who,  to  preserve  an  authority  unlawfully  acquired,  asso- 
ciates in  his  guilt  a  supreme  Pontiff,  whom  the  multitude  is  accus- 
tomed to  reverence  as  the  representative  of  their  God,  but  who, 
by  this  act  of  scandal  and  sacrilege,  descends  to  a  level  with  the 
most  culpable  of  men  ?  I  have  heard,  not  only  in  this  city,  but  in 
villages,  where  sincerity  is  more  frequent  than  corruption,  and 
where  hypocrites  are  as  little  known  as  infidels,  these  remarks 
made  by  the  people :  "  Can  the  real  vicar  of  Christ,  by  his  inau- 
guration, commit  the  double  injustice  of  depriving  the  legitimate 
owner  of  his  rights,  and  of  bestowing,  as  a  sacred  donation,  what 
belongs  to  another,  and  what  he  has  no  power,  no  authority  to 
dispose  of?  Can  Pius  VII.  confer  on  Napoleonethe  First,  what 
belongs  to  Louis  XVIII  ?  Would  Jesus  Christ,  if  upon  earth, 
have  acted  thus?  Would  his  immediate  successors,  the  apostles, 
not  have  preferred  the  suffering  of  martyrdom  to  the  commission 
of  any  injury  ?  If  the  present  Roman  Pontiff  acts  differently  to 
what  his  master  and  predecessors  would  have  done,  can  he  be 
the  vicar  of  our  Saviour?"  These,  and  many  similar  reflections^ 


76  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  common  people  have  made,  and  make  yet ;  the  step  ! 
doubt  to  disbelief  is  but  short ;  and  those  brought  up  in  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  religion,  who  hesitate  about  believing  Pius  VII.  to 
be  the  vicar  of  Christ,  will  soon  remember  the  precepts  of  athe- 
ists and  free-thinkers,  and  believe  that  Christ  is  not  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  a  God  is  only  the  invention  of  fear. 

The  fact  is,  that  by  the  Pope's  performance  of  the  coronation 
of  an  Emperor  of  the  French,  a  religious  as  well  as  a  political  re- 
volution was  effected  ;  and  the  usurper  in  power,  whatever  his 
creed  may  be,  will  hereafter,  without  much  difficulty,  force  it 
on  his  slaves.  You  may,  perhaps,  object,  that  -Pius  VII.  in  his 
official  account  to  the  sacred  college  of  his  journey  to  France, 
speaks  with  enthusiasm  of  the  Catholicism  of  the  French  people, 
But  did  not  the  Goddess  of  Reason,  did  not  Robespierre,  as  a 
high  priest  of  a  Supreme  Being,  speak  as  highly  of  their  secta- 
ries ?  Read  the  Moniteur  of  1793  and  1794,  and  you  will  be  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  this  assertion.  They,  like  the  Pope,  spoke 
of  what  they  saw  ;  and  they,  like  him,  did  not  see  an  individual 
who  was  not  instructed  how  to  perform  his  part,  so  as  to  give  sa- 
tisfaction to  him  whom  he  was  to  please,  and  to  those  who  em- 
ployed him.  As  you  have  attended  to  the  history  of  our  Revo- 
lution, you  have  found  it  in  great  part  a  cruel  masquerade,  where 
none  but  the  unfortunate  Louis  XVI.  appeared  in  his  native  and 
natural  character,  and  without  a  mask. 

The  countenance  of  Pius  VII.  is  placjd  and  benign,  and  a  kind 
of  calmness  and  tranquillity  pervades  his  address  and  manners, 
which  are,  however,  far  from  being  easy  or  elegant.  The 
.crowds  that  he  must  have  been  accustomed  to  see,  since  his  pre- 
sent elevation,  have  not  lessened  a  timidity,  the  consequence  of 
early  seclusion.  Nothing  troubled  him  more  than  the  numerous 
deputations  of  our  Senate,  Legislative  Body,  Tribunate,  Na- 
tional Institute,  Tribunals,  &c.  tluit  teased  him  on  every  occa- 
sion. He  never  was  suspected  of  any  vices,  but  all  his  virtues 
are  negative  ;  and  his  best  quality  is,  not  to  do  good,  but  to  pre- 
vent evil.  -His  piety  is  sincere  and  unaffected,  and  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  perceive  that  he  has  been  more  accustomed  to  address 
'his  God  than  to  converse  with  men.  He  is  no  where  so  well  in 
his  place,  as  before  the  altar  ;  v/hen  imploring  the  blessings  oi 
Providence  on  his  av/Ut'iv^,  be-  '  r.r-.Vs  with  eonfidence,  as  to  <<, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  7? 

friend  to  whom  his  purity  is  known,  and  who  is  accustomed 
listen  favourably  to  his  prayers.  He  is  zealous,  but  not  fanati- 
cal, but  equally  superstitious  as  devout.  His  closet  was  crowded 
with  relics,  rosaries,  8cc.  and'  there  he  passed  generally  eight 
hours  of  the  twenty-four  upon  his  knees,  in  prayer  and  medita- 
tion. He  often  inflicted  on  himself  mortifications,  and  observed 
fast-days,  and  kept  his  vows  with  religious  strictness. 

None  of  the  promises  made  him  by  Cardinal  Fesch,  in  the 
name  of  Napoleone  the  Fii^t,  were  performed,  but  were  put  off 
until  a  general  pacification.  He  was  promised  indemnity  for 
Avignon,  Bologna,  Ferrara,  and  Ravenna  ;  tne  ancient  supremacy 
and  pecuniary  contributions  of  the  Gallicsin  church,  and  the  re- 
storation of  certain  religious  orders  both  in  France  and  Italy; 
but  notwithstanding  his  own  representations,  and  the  activity  of 
his  Cardinal  Caprara,  nothing  was  decided,  though  nothing  was 
l-e  fused. 

By  some  means  or  other  he  was  become  perfectly  acquainted 
with  the  crimes  and  vices  of  most  of  our  public  functionaries. 
Talleyrand  was  surprised,  when  Cardinal  Caprara  explained 
to  him  the  reason  why  the  Pope  refused  to  admit  some  persons  to 
his  presence  ;  and  why  he  wished  others  even  not  to  be  of  the 
party,  when  he  accepted  the  invitations  of  Buonaparte  and  his 
wife  to  their  private  societies.  Many  are,  however,  of  opinion, 
that  Talleyrand,  from  malignity  or  revenue,  often  heightened  and 
confirmed  his  Holiness's  aversion.  This  was  at  least  once  the 
case,  with  regard  to  De  Lalande.  When  Duroc  inquired  the1 
cause  of  the  Pope's  displeasure  against  this  astronomer,  and 
hinted  that  it  would  be  very  agreeable  to  the  Emperor,  were  hi& 
Holiness  to  permit  him  the  honour  of  prostrating  himself,  he 
was  answered,  that  men  of  talents  and  learning  would  always  be 
welcome  to  approach  his  person ;  that  he  pitied  the  errors,  and 
prayed  for  the  conversion,  of  this  savant,  but  was  neither  dis- 
pleased nor  offended  with  him.  Talleyrand,  when  informed  of 
the  Pope's  answer,  accused  Cardinal  Caprara  of  having  misinter- 
preted his  master's-  communications  ;  and  this  prelate,  in  his 
turn,  censured  our  minister's  bad  memory.. 

You  must  have  read,  that  this  De  Lalande  is  regarded  ii> 
France  as  the  first  astronomer  of  Europe,  and  hailed  as  the  high 
griest  of  atheists  j  he  is  said  to  be  the  author  of  a  shocking 

H  2 


73  SFXRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

blasphemous  work,  called,"  The  Bible  of  a  People  who  -acknow- 
ledge no  God."  He  imjilored  the  -ferocious  Robespierre  to  hone ur 
the  heavens,  by  bestowing  on  a  new  planet,  pretended  to  be  dis- 
covered, his  ci'di-vant  Christian  name,  Maximilian.  In  a  letter 
ef  congratulation  to  Buonaparte,  on. the  occasion  of  bis  present 
elevation,  he  also  imfdored  him  to  honour  the  God  of  the  Chi  is- 
tians,  by  stiling  himself  Jesus  Christ  the  First,  Emperor  of  the 
French,  instead  of  Napoleone  the  First.  But  it  was  not  his  known 
impiety  that  made  Talleyrand  wish  to  exclude  him  from  insult- 
ing, with  his  presence  a  Christian  Pontiff.  In  the  .summer  of 
1799,  when  the  minister  was  in  a  momentary  disgrace,  Be  La- 
lande  was  at  the  head  of  those  who  imputed  to  his  treachery, 
corruption,  and  machinations,  all  the  evils  France  then  Buffered, 
both  from  external  enemies;and  internal  factions.  If  Talleyrand 
has  justly  been  reproached  for  soon  forgetting  good  offices  and 
services  done  him,  nobody  ever  denied  that  he  has  the  best  re- 
collection in  the  world  of  offences  or  attacks,  and  that  he  is  as  re- 
vengeful as  unforgiving. 

The  only  one  of  our  great  men,  whom  Pius  VII,  remained  ob- 
stinate and  inflexible  in  not  receiving,  was  the  senator  and  minis- 
ter of  police,  Fouche.  AS  his  Holiness  was  not  so  particular 
with  regard  to  other  persons,  who,  like  Fouche,  were  both  apos- 
tate priests,  and  regicide  subjects,  the  following  is  reported  to 
be  the  cause  of  his  aversion  and  obduracy. 

In  November,  1793,  the  remains  of  a  wretch  of  the  name  of 
Challiers,  justly  called,  for  his  atrocities,  the  Marui  of  Lyons,  was 
ordered  by  Fouche,  then  a  representative  of  the  people  in  thai- 
city,  to  be  produced  and  publicly  worshipped  ;  ami  under  hi;; 
particular  auspices,  a  grand  fete  was  performed  to  the  memory 
of  this  republican  martyr^  who  had  been  executed  as  an  assassin. 
As  part  of  this  impious  ceremony,  an  ass  covered  with  a  Bishop's 
vestments,  having  on  his  head  a  mitre,  and  the  volumes  of  holy 
writ  tied  to  his  tail,  paraded  the  streets.  The  remains  of  Chal- 
liers were  then  burnt,  and  the  ashes  distributed  among  his  adorers; 
while  the  books  were  also  consumed,  and  the  ashes  scattered  in. 
the  wind.  Fouche  proposed,  after  giving  the  ass  some  water  to 
drink  in  a  sacred  chalice,  to  terminate  the  festivity  of  the  day,  by 
murdering  all  the  prisoners,  amounting  to  seven 'thousand  five 
-hundred  ;  but  a  sudden  storm  prevented  the  execution  of  this 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  *• 

diabolical  proposition,  and  dispersed  the  sacrilegious  congrega 
tion. 


LETTER    XX. 

Paris,  August)  1805. 
MY  LORD, 

THOUGH  all  the  Buonapartes  were  great  favourites  with 
Pius  VII.  Madame  Lscthia,  their  mother,  had  a  visible  prefer- 
ence. In  her  apartments  he  seemed  most  pleased  to  meet  the 
family  parties,  as  they  were  called,  because  to  them,  except  the 
Buonapartes,  none  but  a  few  select  favourites  were  invited ;  a 
distinction  as  much  wished  for  and  envied  as  any  other  court  ho- 
nour. After  the  Pope  had  fixed  the  evening  he  would  appear 
among  them,  Duroc  made  out  a  list,  under  the  dictates  cf  Na* 
poleone,  of  the  chosen  few  destined  to  partake  of  the  blessing  of 
his  Holiness's  presence.  This  list  was  merely  firoformat  or  as  a 
compliment,  laid  before  him  ;  and  after  his  tacit  approbation,  the 
Individuals  were  informed,  from  the  first  chamberlain's  office, 
that  they  would  be  honoured  with  admittance  at  such  an  hour,  to 
such  a  company,  and  in  such  an  apartment.  The  dress  in  which 
they  were  to  appear  was  also  prescribed.  The  parties  usually 
met  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening :  on  the  Pope's  entrance,  all 
persons  of  both  sexes  kneeled  to  receive  his  blessing.  Tea,  ice, 
liqueurs,  and  confectionary,  were  then  served.  In  the  place  of 
honour  were  three  elevated  elbow  chairs,  and  his  Holiness  was 
seated  between  the  Emperor  and  Empress,  and  seldom  spoke  to 
any  one,  to  whom  Napoleone  did  not  previously  address  the 
word.  The  exploits  of  Buonaparte,  particularly  his  campaigns 
in  Egypt,  were  the  chief  subjects  of  conversation.  Before  eight 
o'clock,  the  Pope  always  retired ;  distributing  his  blessing  to  the 
kneeling  audience,  as  on  his  entry.  When  he  was  gone,  card 
tables  were  brought  in,  and  play  was  permitted.  Duroc  received 
his  master's  orders  how  to  distribute  the  places  at  the  different 
tables  ;  what  games  were  to  be  played,  and  the  amount  of  the 
sums  to  be  staked.  These  were  usually  trifling  and  small,  com- 
pared to  what  is  daily  risked  in  our  fashionable  circles. 

Often,  after  the  Pope  hud  returned  to  his  own  rooms,  Madame 
Laptitu  Buonaparte  was  admitted  to  assist  at  his  private  prayers. 


so  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

This  lady,  whose  intrigues  and  gallantry  are  proverbial  in  Cor- 
sica, has,  now  that  she  is  old,  as  is  generally  the  case,  turned  de- 
votee ;  and  is  surrounded  by  hypocrites -and  impostors,  who, 
under  the  mask  of  sanctity,  deceive  and  plunder  htfr.  Her  anti- 
chambers  are  always  full  oF  priests  ;  and  her  closet  and  bed- 
room are  crowded  with  relics,  which  she  collected  dining  her 
journey  to  Italy  last  year.  She  might,  if  she  chose,  establish  a 
Catholic  museum,  and  furnish  it  with  a  more  curious  collection,  in 
its  sort,  than  any  of  our  other  museums  contain.  Of  all  the  saints  in 
our  calendar,  there  is  not  one,  of  any  notoriety,  who  has  not  sup- 
plied her  with  a  finger,  a  toe,  or  somu  other  part ;  or  with  apiece 
of  a  shirt,  a  handkerchief,  a  sandal,  or  a  winding-sheet.  Even 
a  bit  of  a  pair  of  breeches,  said  to  have  belonged  to  St.  Mathu- 
rin,  whom  many  think  was  a  sans-culotte,  obtains  her  adoration 
on  certain  occasions.  As  none  of  her  children  have  yet  arrived 
at  the  same  height  of  faith  as  herself,  she  has,  in  her  will,  be- 
queathed to  the  Pope  all  her  relics,  together  with  eight  hundred 
and  seventy-nine  prayer  books,  and  four  hundred  and  forty-six 
bibles,  either  in  manuscript  or  of  different  editions.  Her  fa- 
vourite breviary,  used  only  on  great  solemnities,  was  presented* 
to  her  by  Cardinal  Maury  at  Rome,  and  belonged,  as  it  is  said, 
formerly  to  St.  Frai^ois,  whose  commentary,  written  with  his 
own  hands,  fills  the  margins  ;  though  many,  who  with  me,  adore 
him  as  a  saint,  doubt  whether  he  could  either  read  or  write. 

Not  long  ago  she  made,  as  she  thought,  an  exceedingly  valua- 
ble acquisition.  A  priest  arrived  direct  from  the  holy  city  of  Je- 
rusalem, well  recommended  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  convents 
there,  with  whom  he  pretended  to  have  passed  his  youth.  After 
prostrating  himself  before  the  Pope,  he  waited  on  Madame  L;e- 
litia  Buonaparte.  He  told  her  that  he  had  brought  with  him 
from  Syria  the  famous  relic,  the  shoulder  bone  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist ;  but  that  being  in  want  of  money  for  his  voyage,  he 
borrowed  upon  it,  from  a  Grecian  bishop  in  Montenegra,  two 
hundred  Louis  d'ors.  This  sum,  and  one  hundred  Louis  d'ors 
besides,  was  immediately  given  him  ;  and  within  three  months^ 
for  a  large  sum  in  addition  to  those  advanced,  this  precious  reliq 
was  in  Madame  Lsetitia's  possession.  » 

Notwithstanding  this  lady's  care,  not  to  engage  in  her  service 
any  person  of  either  sex,  who  cannot  produce,  not  a  certificate  of 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUU.  31 

from  the  municipality,  as  was  formerly  the  case,  but  a 
certificate  of  Christianity,  and  a  billet  of  confession  signed  by  the 
curate  of  the  parish,  she  had  often  been  robbed,  and  the  robbers 
had  made  particularly  free  \viih  those  relics  which  were  set  in 
gold  or  in  diamonds.  She  accused  her  daughter,  the  Princess 
Borghese,  who  often  rallies  the  devotion  of  her  mamma,  and 
who  is  more  an  amateur  of  the  living,  than  of  the  dead,  of  having 
played  her  these  tricks.  The  Princess  informed  Napoleone  of 
her  mother's  losses,  as  well  as  of  her  own  innocence,  and  asked 
him  to  apply  to  the, police- to  find  out  the  thief,  who  no  doubt  was 
one  of  those  pious  rogues  who  almost  devoured  their  mother. 

On  the  next  day,  Napoleone  invited  Madame  Lsethiato  dinneiy 
and  Fouche  had  orders  to  make  a  strict  search  during  her  ab- 
sence, among  the  persons  composing  her  household.  Though 
he  on  this  occasion  did  not  find  what  he  was  looking  for,  he 
made  a  discovery,  which  very  much  mortified  Madame  La:titia,, 

Her  first  chambermaid,  Rosina  Gaglini,  .possessed  both  her 
esteem  and  confidence,  and  had  been  sent  for  purposely  fi  om 
Ajaccio,  in  Corsica,  on  account  of  her  general  renown  for  great 
piety,  and  a  report  that  she  was  an  exclusive  favourite  with  'the 
Virgin  Mary,  by  whose  interference  she  had  -even : performed,  it 
•was  said,  some  miracles  ;  such  as  restoring  stolen  goods,  run- 
away cattle,  lost  children,  and  procuring  prizes  in  the  lottery, 
Rosina  was  as  relic  mad  as  her  mistress  ;  and,  as  she  had  no 
means  to  procure  them  otherwise,  she  determined  to  partake  of 
her  lady's,  by  cutting  off  a  small  part  of  each  relic,  of  Madame 
L?;titia's  principal  saints.  These  precious  morceaux  she  placed 
in  a  box,  upon  which  she -kneeled  to  say  her  prayers  during  the 
day  ;.and  which,  for  a  mortification,  served  her  as  a  pillow  during 
the  night.  Upon  each  of  thqse  sacred  bits  she  had  affixed  a 
label,  with  the  name  of  the  saint  it  belonged  to,  which  occasioned 
the  disclosure. 

When  Madame  Lastitia  heard  of  this  pious  theft,  she  insisted 
on  having  .the 'culprit  immediately  and  severely  punished  ;  and 
though  the  Princess  Borghese,  as  the  innocent  cause  of  poor 
Rosina's  misfortune,  interfered,  and  Rosina  herself  .promised 
never  more  to  plunder  saints,  she  was  without  mercy  turned 
away  ;  and  even  denied  money  sufficient  to  carry  her.  back  to 
Had  she  ijiailc  free  with  Matlame  Lwtitia's  plate,  ov 


32,  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

wardrobe,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  she  had  been  forgiven  ;  but 
to  presume  to  share  with  those  sacred  supporters  on  her  way  to 
paradise,  was  a  more  unpardonable  act,  with  a  devotee,  than  to 
steal  from  a  lover  the  portrait  of  an  adored  mistress. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  police  was  upon  the  alert,  to  discover 
the  person  whom  they  suspected  of  having  stolen  the  relics  for 
the  diamonds,  and  not  the  diamonds  for  the  relics.  Among  our 
fashionable  and  new  saints,  surprising  as  you  may  think  it,  Ma- 
dame de  Genlis  holds  a  distinguished  place;  and  she  too  is  an 
amateur )  and  collector  of  relics  in  proportion  to  her  means  ;  and 
with  her  were  found  those  missed  by  Madame  Lsetitia.  Being 
asked  to  give  up  the  name  of  him  from  whom  she  had  purchased 
them,  she  mentioned  Abbe  Saladin,  the  pretended  priest  from 
Jerusalem.  He  in  his  turn  was  questioned,  and  by  his  answers 
gave  rise  to  suspicion  that  he  himself  was  the  thief.  The  person 
of  whom  he  pretended  to  have  bought  them,  was  not  to  be  found, 
nor  any  one  of  such  a  description  remembered  to  have  been  seen 
any  where.  On  being  carried  to  prison,  he  claimed  the  protec- 
tion of  Madame  Lxtiti%  and  produced  a  letter,  in  which  this  lady 
had  promised  him  a  bishopric  either  in  France  or  in  Italy.  When 
she  was  in  formed  of  his  situation,  she  applied  to  her  son  Napo- 
leone,  urging,  that  a  priest,  who  from  Jerusalem  had  brought 
with  him  to  Europe,  such  an  extraordinary  relic  as  the  shoulder 
of  St.  John,  could  not  be  culpable. 

Abbe  Saladin  had  been  examined  by  Real,  who  concluded, 
from  the  accent  and  perfection  with  which  he  spoke  the  French 
language,  that  he  was  some  French  adventurer,  who  had  impos- 
ed on  the  credulity  and  superstition  of  Madame  Lxtitia  ;  and 
therefore  threatened  him  with  the  rack  if  he  did  not  confess  the 
truth.  He  continued  however  in  his  story,  and  was  going  to  be 
released  upon  an  order  from  the  Emperor,  when  a  gens-d'armes 
recognised  him,  as  a  person  who  eight  years  before  had,  under 
the  name  of  Lanoue,  been  condemned  for  theft  and  forgery  to 
the  galleys  ;  from  whence  he  had  made  his  escape.  Finding  him- 
self discovered,  he  avowed  every  thing.  He  said  he  had  served 
in  Egypt,  in  the  guides  of  Buonaparte,  but  deserted  to  the  Turks, 
and  turned  Mussulman,  but  afterwards  returned  to  the  bosom  of 
the  church  at  Jerusalem.  There  he  persuaded  the  friars  that- 
hp  had  been  a  priest,  and  obtained  the  certificates  which 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  83 

tluced  him  to  the  Pope,  and  to  the  Emperor's  mother  ;  from 
•whom  he  had  received  twelve  thousand  livres,  500/.  for  part  of 
the  jaw-bone  of  a  whale,  which  he  had  sold  her  for  the  shoulder 
bone  of  a  saint.  As  the  police  believes  the  certificates  he  had  pro- 
duced to  be  also  forged,  he  is  detained  in  prison,  until  an  answer 
arrives  from  our  consul  in  Syria. 

Madame  Lxtitia  did  not  resign  without  tears  the  relic  he  had 
sold  her ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  many  other  pieces  of 
her  collections,  worshipped  by  her  as  femains  of  saints,  arc 
equally  genuine  as  this  shoulder  bone  of  St.  John. 


LETTER  XXI. 

Pa riS)  August^    1805, 

MY  LORD, 

THAT  the  population  of  this  capital  has,  since  the  Revolu- 
tion, decreased  near  two  hundred  thousand  souls,  is  not  to  be  la- 
mented. This  focus  of  corruption  and  profligacy  is  still  too  po- 
pulous, though  the  inhabitants  do  not  amount  to  six  hundred 
thousand ;  for  I  am  well  persuaded  that  more  crimes  and  ex- 
cesses of  every  description  are  committed  here  in  one  year,  than 
are  perpetrated  in  the  same  period  of  time  in  all  other  European 
capitals  put  together.  From  not  reading  in  our  newspapers,  as 
we  do  in  yours,  of  the  robberies,  murders  and  frauds,  discovered 
und  punished,  you  may  perhaps  be  inclined  to  suppose  my  asser- 
tion erroneous,  or  exaggerated  ;  but  it  is  the  policy  of  our  present 
government  to  labour  as  much  as  jiosdbte  in*77ie  dark  ;  that  is  to 
say,  to  prevent,  where  it  can  be  done,  all  publicity  of  any  thing 
directly  or  indirectly  tending;  to  inculpate  it,  of  oppression,  tyran- 
ny, or  even  negligence  ;  and  to  conceal  the  immorality  of  the  peo- 
ple so  nearly  connected  with  its  own  immoral  power.  It  is  true, 
that  many  vices  and  crimes  here,  as  well  as  every  where  else,  are 
unavoidable,  and  the  natural  consequences  of  corruption  ;  and 
might  be  promuilgated  therefore,  without  attaching  any  reproach 
to  our  rulers  ;  but  they  .are  so  accustomed  to  the  mystery  adher- 
ent to  tyranny,  that  even  the  most  unimportant  law-suit,  uninte- 
resting intrigue,  elopement,  or  divorce,  is  never  allowed  to  be 
mentioned  in  our  journals,  without  a  previous  permission  from 
the  prefect  of  police,  who  very  seldom  grants  it. 


34  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Most  of,  the  enormities  now  deplored  in  this  country,  are  tue 
consequence  of  moral  and  religious  licentiousness,  Unit  has  suc- 
ceeded to  political;  anarchy,  or  rather  were  produced  by  it,  and 
survive  it.  Add.  to  this  the  numerous  examples  of  the  impunity 
of  guilt,  prosperity  of  infamy,  misery  of  honesty,  and  sufferings 
of  virtue  ;  and  you  will  not  think  it  surprising  that,  notwithstand- 
ing half  a  million  of  spies,  our  roads  and  streets  are  covered  with 
robbers  and  assassins,  and  our  scaffolds  with  victims. 

The  undeniable  TRUTH,  that  this  city  alone  is  watched  by  one 
hundred  thousand  spies,  (so  that  when"  in  company  with  six  per- 
sons, one  has  reason  to  dread  the  presence  of  one  spy)  proclaims 
at  once  the  morality  of  the  governors  and  that  of  the  governed  : 
were  the  former  just,  and  the  latter  good,  this  mass  of  vileness 
would  never  be  employed,  or,  if  employed,  wickedness  would  ex- 
pire for  want  of  fuel,  and  the  hydra  of  tyranny  perish  by  its  own 
pestilential  breath. 

According  to  the  official  registers  published  by  Manuel,  in 
1792,  the  number  of  spies  all  over  France,  during  the  reign  of 
Louis  XVI.  were  nineteen  thousand  three  hundred  (five  thousand 
less  than  under  Louis  XV.)  and  of  this  number  six  thousand 
were  distributed  in  Paris,  and  in  a  circle  of  four  leagues  around 
it,  including  Versailles.  You  will  undoubtedly  ask  me,  even  al- 
lowing for  our  extension  of  territory,  what  can  be  the  cause  of 
this  disproportionate  increase  of  mistrust  and  depravity  ?  I  will 
explain  it,  as  far  as  my  abilities  admit,  according  to  the  opinions 
of  others,  compared  with  my  own  remarks. 

When  factions  usurped  the  supremacy  of  the  kings,  vigilance 
augmented  with  insecurity  ;  and  almost  every  body  who  was  not 
an  opposer,  who  refused  being  an  accomplice,  or  feared  to  be  a 
victim,  was  obliged  to  serve  as  an  informer,  and  vilify  himself  by 
becoming  a  spy.  The  rapidity  with  which  parties  followed  and 
destroyed  each  other,  made  the  criminals  as  numerous,  as  the 
sufferings  of  honour  and  loyalty  innumerable  ;  and  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  few  persons  exist  in  my  degraded  country,  whose  firmness 
and  constancy  were  proofs  against  repealed  torments  and  trials, 
and  who,  to  preserve  their  lives,  did  not  renounce  their  principles 
and  probity. 

Under  the  reign  of  Robespierre  and  of  the  Committee  of  Pub- 
lic Safety,  every  member  of  government,  of  the  clubs,  of  the  tri- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  85 

<>unals,  and  of  the  communes,  had  his  private  spies  ;  but  no  regu- 
lar register  was  kept  of  their  exact  number.  Under  the  Direc- 
tory, a  police  minister  was  nominated,  and  a  police  office  esta- 
blished. According  to  the  declaration  of  the  police  minister, 
Cochon,  in  17 97,  the  spies,  who  were  then  regularly  paid,  amount- 
ed to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  ;  and  of  these,  thirty  thou- 
sand did  duty  in  this  capital.  How  many  they  were  in  1799, 
when  Fouche,  for  the  first  time,  was  appointed  a  chief  of  the  de- 
partment of  police,  is  not  known ;  but  suppose  them  doubled 
within  two  years  ;  their  increase  since,  is  nevertheless  im- 
mense, considering  that  France  has  enjoyed  upwards  of  four 
years  uninterrupted  continental,  peace,  and  has  not  been  exposed 
to  any  internal  convulsions,  during  the  same  period. 

You  may,  perhaps,  object  that  France  is  not  rich  enough  to 
keep  up  as  numerous  an  army  of  spies  as  of  soldiers ;  because 
the  expense  of  the  former  must-  be  triple  the  amount  of  the 
latter.  Were  all  these  spies,  now  called  police  agents,  or  agents 
of  the  secret  police,  paid  regular  salaries,  your  objection  would 
stand  ;  but  most  of  them  have  no  other  reward  than  the  protec- 
tion of  the  police  ;  being  employed  in  gambling-houses,  in  coffee- 
houses, in  taverns,  at  the  theatres,  in  the  public  gardens,  in  lot- 
tery-offices, at  pawn-brokers,  in  brothels,  and  in  bathing-houses, 
where  the  proprietors  or  masters  of  these  establishments  pay 
them.  They  receive  nothing  from  the  police,  but  when  they 
are  enabled  to  make  any  great  discoveries  ;  those  who  have  been 
robbed  or  defrauded,  and  to  whom  they  have  been  serviceable, 
are  indeed  obliged  to  present  them  with  some  douceur,  fixed  by 
the  police  at  the  rate  of  the  value  recovered  ;  but  such  occur- 
rences are  merely  accidental.  To  these  are  to  be  added  all  indi- 
viduals of  either  sex,  who  by  the  law  are  obliged  to  obtain  from 
the  police  licenses  to  exercise  their  trade  ;  as  pedlars,  tinkers, 
masters  of  pupp -.it-shows,  wild  beasts,  &c.  These,  on  receiving 
their  passes,  inscribe  themselves,  and  take  the  oaths  as  spies  ; 
and  are  forced  to  send  in  their  regular  reports  of  what  they  hear 
or  sje.  Prostitutes,  who,  all  over  this  country,  are  under  the  ne- 
cc :••  ^ity  of  paying  for  regular  licenses,  are  obliged  also  to  give  in- 
formation, from  time  to  time,  to  the  nearest  police  commissary 
of  what  they  observe,  or  what  they  know,  respecting  their  visit- 
ors, neighbours,  &c.  The  number  of  unfortunate  women  of 


86  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

this  description,  who  had  taken  out  licenses  during  the  year  12, 
or  from  September,  1803,  to  September,  1804,  is  officially  known 
to  have  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  twenty  thousand,  of  whom 
forty  thousand  were  employed  by  the  armies. 

It  is  no  secret  that  Napoleone  Buonaparte  has  his  secret  spies 
upon  his  wife,  his  brothers,  his  sisters,  his  ministers,  senators, 
and  other  public  functionaries,  and  also  upon  his  public  spies. 
These  are  all  under  his  own  immediate  control,  and  that  of  Du- 
roc,  who  does  the  duty  of  his  private  police  minister,  and  in 
whom  he  confides  more  than  even  in  the  members  of  his  own 
family.  In  imitation  of  their  master,  each  of  the  other  Buona- 
partes, and  each  of  the  ministers,  have  their  individual  spies,  and 
are  watched  in  their  turn  by  the  spies  of  their  secretaries,  clerks, 
ecc.  This  infamous  custom  of  espionage  goes  ad  infinitum,  and 
appertains  almost  to  the  establishment  and  to  the  suite  of  each 
man  in  place  ;  who  does  not  think  himself  secure  a  moment,  if 
he  remains  in  ignorance  of  the  transactions  of  his  rivals,  as  well 
as  those  of  his  equals  and  superiors. 

Fouche  and  Talleyrand  are  reported  to  have  disagreed  before 
Buonaparte,  on  some  subject  or  other,  which  is  frequently  the 
case.  The  former,  offended  at  some  doubts  thrown  out  about 
his  intelligence,  said  to  the  latter — "  I  am  so  well  served,  that  I 
can  tell  you  the  name  of  every  man  or  woman  you  have  con- 
versed with,  both  yesterday  and  to-day  ;  where  you  saw  them, 
and  how  long  you  remained  with  them,  or  they  with  you." — "  If 
such  common-place  espionage  evinces  any  merit,"  retorted  Tal- 
leyrand, "  I  am  even  here  your  superior  ;  because  I  know,  not 
only  what  has  already  passed  with  you,  and  in  your  house,  but 
what  is  to  pass  hereafter.  I  can  inform  you  of  every  dish  you 
had  for  your  dinners  this  week  ;  who  provided  those  dinners,  and 
who  is  expected  to  provide  your  meats  to-morrow,  and  the  day 
after.  I  can  whisper  you,  in  confidence^  who  slept  with  Madame 
Fouche  last  night,  and  who  has  an  appointment  with  her  to- 
night."— Here  Buonaparte  interrupted  them,  in  his  usual  digni- 
fied language  :  "  Hold  both  your  tongues  ;  you  are  both  great 
rogues — but  I  am  at  a  loss  to  decide  which  is  the  greatest.'* 
Without  uttering  a  single  syllable,  Talleyrand  made  a  profound 
reverence  to  Fouche.  Buonaparte  smiled,  and  advised  them  t« 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  87 

live  upon  good  terms,  if  they  were  desirous  of  keeping  their 
places. 

A  man  of  the  name  of  Ducroux,  who,  under  Robespierre,  had 
from  a  barber  been  made  general,  and  afterwards  broken  for  his 
ignorance,  was  engaged  by  Buonaparte,  as  a  private  spy  upon 
Fouche,  who  employed  him  in  the  same  capacity  upon  Buona- 
parte. His  reports  were  always  written,  and  delivered  in  person 
into  the  hands  both  of  the  Emperor  and  of  his  minister.  One 
morning,  he  by  mistake  gave  to  Buonaparte  the  report  of  him, 
instead  of  that  intended  for  him.  Buonaparte  began  to  read  .• 
"  Yesterday,  at  nine  o'clock,  the  Emperor  r.cted  the  complete 
part  of  a  madman  ;  he  swore,  he  stamped,  kicked,  foamed, 
roared ;" — here  poor  Ducroux  threw  himself  at  Buonaparte's 
feet,  and  called  for  mercy,  for  the  terrible  blunder  he  had  com- 
mitted. "  For  whom,"  asked  Buonaparte,  "  did  you  intend  this 
treasonable  correspondence  r — I  suppose  it  is  composed  for 
some  English  or  Russian  agent,  for  Pitt  or  for  Marcoff.  How 
long  have  you  conspired  with  my  enemies,  and  where  are  ycur- 
accomplices  .?"  "  For  God's  sake  hear  me,  Sire,"  prayed  Du- 
croux. "  Your  Majesty's  enemies  have  always  been  mine.  The 
report  is  for  one  of  your  best  friends  ;  but  were  I  to  mention  his 
name,  he  will  ruin  me." — "  Speak  out  or  you  die  !"  vociferated 
Buonaparte.  "  Well,  Sire,  it  is  for  Fouche — for  nobody  else  but 
Fouche."  Buonaparte  then  rang  the  bs.il  for  Curoc,  whom  lie. 
ordered  to  see  Ducroux  shut  up  in  a  dungeon,  and  afterwards  to 
send  for  Fouche.  The  minister  denied  all  knowledge  of  Du- 
croux, who,  after  undergoing  several  tortures,  expiated  his  blun- 
der upon  the  rack. 


LETTER    XXII. 

Par is ,  jiugust)  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  Pope,  during  his  stay  here,  rose  regularly  every  morn- 
ing at  five  o'clock,  and  went  to  bed  every  night  before  ten.  The 
first  hours  of  the  day  he  passed  in  prayer,  breakfasted  after  the 
mass  was  over,  transacted  business  till  one,  and  dined  at  two. 
Bstween  three  or  four  he  took  his  *&>*/«,  or  nap  j  afterwards  he" 


S8  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

attended  the  vespers,  and  when  vliey  were  over,  he  passed  an 
hour  with  the  Buonapartes,  or  admitted  to  Lis  presence  some 
members  of  the  clergy.  The  day  was  concluded,  as  it  was  begun, 
with  seme  hours  of  devotion.  s 

Had  Pius  VII.  possessed  the  character  of  a  Pius  VI.  he  would 
never  have  crossed  the  Alps  ;  cr,  had  he  been  gifted  with  the 
spirit  and  talents  of  Sextus  V.  or  Leo  X.  he  would  never  have  en- 
tered France  to  crown  Buonaparte,  without  previously  stipulating 
for  himself,  that  he  should  be  put  into  possession  of  the  sove- 
reignty of  Italy.  You  can  form  no  idea  what  great  stress  was  laid 
on  this  act  of  his  Holiness,  by  the  Buonaparte  family,  and  what 
sacrifices  were  destined  to  be  made,  Lad  any  serious  and  obstinate 
resistance  been  apprehended.  Threats  were  indeed  employed 
personally  against  the  Pope,  and  bribes  distributed  to  the  refrac- 
tory members  of  the  sacred  college ;  but  it  was  no  secret;,  tithes 
here  or  at  Milan,  that  Cardinal  Fesch  had  carte  blanche  with  re- 
gard to  the  restoration  of  all  provinces  seized,  since  the  war, 
from  the  Holy  See,  or  full  territorial  indemnities  in  their  place, 
at  the  expense  of  Naples  and  Tuscany :  and  indeed,  whatever 
the  Roman  Pontiff  has  lost  in  Italy,  had  been  taken  from  him  by 
Buonaparte  alone  ;  and  the  apparent  generosity,  which  policy 
and  ambition  required,  would,  therefore,  have  merely  been  an 
act o£  justice.  Confiding  foolishly  in  the  honour  and  rectitude  of 
iJaiy^Ohc,  wiihout  any  other  security  than  the  assertion  of 
1'esch,  Pius  VII.  within  a  fortnight's  stay  in  France,  found  the 
i^reat  difference  between  the  promises  held  out  to  him,  when  ic- 
siding  as  a  Sovereign  at  Rome,  and  their  accomplishment,  when 
lie  had  so  far  forgotten  himsdf,  and  las  sacred  dignity,  as  to  in- 
habit as  a  guest  the  castle  of  the  Thuilieiies. 

Pius  VII.  mentioned,  the  day  after  his  arrival  at  Fontainbleau, 
that  it  would  be  a  gratification  to  Lis  own  subjects,  were  he  ena- 
bled to  communicate  to  them  the  restoration  of  the  former  ccck- 
biastical  domains,  as  9.  free  gift  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  at 
their  first  conference  ;  as  they  would  then  be  as  well  convinced  of 
Napoleone's  good  faith,  as  he  was  himself.  In  answer,  his  Holi- 
ness was  informed,  that  the  Emperor  was  unprepared  then  to 
discuss  political  subjects,  b-ing  totally  occupied  with  the  then  i>;Us 
how  to  entertain  worthily  his  high  visitor,  and  to  acknowledge 
becomingly  the,  great  honour  clone,  and  the  great  happiness  roiv 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  89 

ferred  on  him  by  such  a  visit.  As  soon  as  the  ceremony  of  the 
coronation  was  over,  every  thing,  h?  hoped)  would  be  arranged  to 
the  reciprocal  satisfaction  of  both  parties. 

About  the  middle  of  last  December,  Buonaparte  was  again 
asked  to  fix  a  clay,  when  the  points  of  negotiation  between  him 
and  the  Pope  could  be  discussed  and  settled.  Cardinal  Caprara, 
who  made  this  demand,  was  referred  to  Talleyrand,  who  denied 
having  yet  any  instructions,  though  in  daily  expectation  of  them. 
Thus  the  time  went  on  until  February,  when  Buonaparte  in- 
formed the  Pope  of  his  determination  to  assume  the  crown  of 
Italy  ;  and  of  some  new  changes  necessary,  in-  consequence,  on. 
the  other  side  of  the  Alps. 

Either  seduced  by  caresses,  or  blinded  by  his  unaccountable  par- 
tiality for  Buonaparte,  Pius  VII.  if  left  to  himself,  would  not  only 
have  renounced  ail  his  former  claims,  but  probably  have  made 
new  sacrifices  to  this  idol  of  his  infatuation.  Fortunately,  his 
counsellors  were  wiser  and  leas  deluded  ;  otherwise  the  remain- 
ing patrimony  of  St.  Peter  might  now  have  constituted  a  part  of 
Napoleone's  inheritance  in  Italy.  "  Am  I  not,  Holy  Father  !" 
exclaimed  the  Emperor  frequently,  "  your  son,  the  work  of  your 
hand  ?  and  if  the  pages  of  history  assign  me  any  glory,  must  it 
not  be  shared  with  you  ?  Or  rather,  do  you  not  share  it  with  me  ? 
An}7  thing  that  impedes  my  successes,  or  makes  the  continuance 
of  my  power  uncertain,  or  hazardous,  reflects  on  you,  and  is  dan- 
gerous to  you.  With  me  you  will  shine  or  be  obscured,  rise  or 
fall.  Could  you  therefore  hesitate  (were  I  to  demonstrate  to  you 
the  necessity  of  such  a  measure)  to  remove  the  Papal  See  to 
Avignon,  where  it  formerly  was,  and  continued  for  centuries,  and 
to  enlarge  the  limits  of  my  kingdom  of  Italy,  with  the  ecclesias- 
tical states  ?  Can  you  believe  my  throne  at  Milan  safe,  as  long  as 
it  is  not  the  SOLE  throne  of  Italy  ?  Do  you  expect  to  govern  at 
Rome,  when  I  cease  to  reign  at  Milan?  No!  Holy  Father  !  the 
Pontiff  who  placed  the  crown  on  my  head,  should  it  be  shaken,, 
will  fall  to  rise  no  more."  If  what  Cardinal  "Capuara  said  can  be 
depended  upon,  Buonaparte  frequently,  used  to  intimidate  or  flat- 
ter the  Pope  in  this  manner. 

The  representations  of  Cardinal  Caprara  changed  Napoleone's 
first  intention  of  being  again  crowned  by  the  Pope  as  a  King  of  Italy.. 
Mis  crafty  Eminence  observed,  that  according  to  theEmperorVowjn 

L2- 


*<*  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

declaration,  it  was  not  intended  that  the  crown  of  France  and  Italy 
should  continue  united.  But  were  he  to  cede  one  supremacy, 
confirmed  by  the  sacred  hands  of  a  Pontiff,  the  partisans^of  the 
Bourbons,  or  the  factions  in  France,  would  then  take  advantage 
to  diminish,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people,  his  right  and  the  sacred- 
jiess  of  his  Holiness,  and  perhaps  make  even  the  crown  of  the 
French  empire  unstable.  He  did  not  deny  that  Charlemagne 
•was  crowned  by  a  Pontiff  in  Italy,  but  this  ceremony  was  per- 
formed at  Rome,  where  that  Prince  was  proclaimed  an  Emperor 
of  the  Holy  Roman  and  German  Empire,  as  well  as  a  King  of 
Lombardy  and  Italy.  Might  not  circumstances  turn  out  so  fa- 
vourable for  Napoleone  the  First,  that  he  also  might  be  inaugu- 
rated an  Emperor  of  the  Germans,  as  well  as  of  the  French  ? 
This  last  compliment,  or  firofihecy\  as  Buonaparte's  courtiers  call 
it,  (what  a  prophet  a  Caprai  a  !)  had  the  desired  effect,  as  it  flatter- 
ed equally  Napoleone's  ambition  and  vanity.  For  fear,  however, 
•that  Talleyrand,  and  other  anti-catholic  counsellors,  who  wanted 
him  to  consider  the  Pope  merely  as  his  first  almoner,  and  to  treat 
him  as  all  other  persons  of  his  household,  his  Eminence  sent  his 
Holiness  as  soon  as  possible  packing  for  Rome.  Though  I  am. 
neither  a  cardinal  nor  a  prophet,  should  you  and  I  live  twenty 
years  longer,  and  the  other  Continental  Sovereigns  not  alter  their 
present  incomprehensible  conduct,  I  can,  without  any  risk,  pTe- 
diet,  that  we  shall  see  Rome  salute  the  second  Charlemagne  an 
Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  ;  if  before  that  time  death, 
does  not  put  a  period  to  his  encroachments  and  gigantic  plans. 


LETTER  XXIII. 

Paris j  August,  1805. 

MY    LOUD, 

NO  Sovereigns  have,  since  the  Revolution,  displayed  more 
grandeur  of  soul,  and  evinced  more  firmness  of  character,  than 
•the  present  King  and  Queen  of  Naples.  Encompassed  by  a  re- 
volutionary volcano,  more  dangerous  than  the  physical  one  ; 
though  disturbed  at  home,  and  defeated  abroad,  they  have  nei- 
ther been  disgraced  nor  dishonoured.  They  have,  indeed,  with 
all  other  Italian  princes,  suffered  territorial  and  pecuniary  losses 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  9i 

but  these  were  not  yielded  through  cowardice  or  treachery,  but 
enforced  by  an  absolute  necessity,  the  consequence  of  the  deser- 
tion or  inefficacy  of  allies. 

But  their  Sicilian  Majesties  have  been  careful,  as  much  as 
they  were  able,  to  exclude  from  their  councils  both  German  il- 
luminati  and  Italian  philosophers.  Their  principal  minister, 
•  Chevalier  Acton,  has  proved  himself  worthy  of  the  confidence 
wit!',  which  his  Sovereigns  have  honoured  him,  and  of  the  hatred 
with  which  he  has  been  honoured  by  all  revolutionists — the  na- 
tural and  irreconcileable  enemies  of  all  legitimate  sovereignty. 

Chevalier  Acton  is  the  son  of  an  Irish  physician,  who  first  was 
established  at  Besancon,  in  France,  and  afterwards  at  Leghorn, 
in  Italy.  He  is  indebted  for  his  present  elevation  to  his  own 
merit,  and  to  the  penetration  of  the  Queen  of  Sardinia,  who  dis- 
covered in  him,  when  young,  those  qualities,  which  have  since 
distinguished  him  as  a  faithful  counsellor  and  an  able  minister. 
As  loyal  as  wise,  he  was,  from  1789,  an  enemy  to  the  French 
'Revolution.  He  easily  foresaw  that  the  specious  promise  of  re- 
generation, held  out  by  impostors  or  fools,  to  delude  the  ignorant, 
the  credulous,  and  the  weak,  would  end  in  that  universal  corrup- 
tion and  general  overthrow,  which  we  since  have  witnessed,  and 
<  the  effects  of  which  our  grand-children  will  mourn. 

When  our  Republic,  in  April,  1792,  declared  war  against  Aus- 
tria, and  when,  in  the  September  following,  the  dominions  of  his 
Sardinian  Majesty  were  invaded  by  our  troops,  the  neutrality  of 
Naples  continued,  and  was  acknowledged  by  our  government. 
On  the  16th  of  December  following,  our  fleet  from  Toulon,, 
however,  cast  anchor  in  the  .Bay  of  Naples,  and  a  grenadier  of 
the  name  of  Belleville,  was  landed  as  an  ambassador  of  the 
French  Republic,  and  threatened  a  bombardment,  in  case  the 
demands  he  presented  in  a  note,  were  not  acceded  to  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  Being  attacked  in  time  of  peace,  and  taken  by  sur- 
prise, the  Court  of  Naples  was  unable  to  make  any  resistance, 
and  Chevalier  Acton  informed  our  grenadier-ambassador,  that 
this  note  had  been  laid  before  his  Sovereign,  who  ordered  him  to 
sign  an  agreement  in  consequence. 

When,  in  February,  1793,  the  King  of  Naples  was  obliged, 
for  his  own  safety,  to  join  the  league  against  France,  Acton 
concluded  a  treaty  with  your  country,  and  informed  the  Sublime 


92  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Porte  of  the  machinations  of  our  Committee  of  Public  Safety, 
in  sending  De  Semonville  as  an  ambassador  to  Constantinople  j 
which,  perhaps,  prevented  the  Divan  from  attacking  Austria,. 
and  occasioned  the  capture  and  imprisonment  of  our  emissary. 

Whenever  our  government  has,  by  the  success  of  our  arms, 
been  enabled  to  dictate  to  Naples,  the  removal  of  Acton  has  been 
insisted  upon  ;  but  though  he  has  ceased  to  transact  business  os- 
tensibly as  a  minister,  his  influence  has  always,  and  deservedly, 
continued  unimpaired,  and  he  still  enjoys  the  just  confidence  and 
esteem  of  his  Prince. 

But  is  his  Sicilian  Majesty  equally  well  represented  at  the  ca- 
binet of  St.  Cloud,  as  served  in  his  own  capital  ?  I  have  told  you 
before,  that  Buonaparte  is  extremely  particular  in  his  acceptance 
of  foreign  diplomatic  agents  ;  and  admits  none  near  his  person, 
whom  he  does  not  believe  to  be  well  inclined  to  him. 

Marquis  de  Gallo,  the  ambassador  of  the  King  of  the  Two  Si- 
cilies, to  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  is  no  novice  in  the  diplo- 
matic career.  His  Sovereign  has  employed  him  for  these  fifteen 
years  in  the  most  delicate  negotiations,  and  nominated  him,  in 
May  1795,  a  minister  of  the  foreign  department,  and  a  successor 
of  Chevalier  Acton,  an  honour  which  he  declined.  In  the  sum- 
mer and  autumn  of  1797,  Marquis  de  Gallo  assisted  at  the  confer- 
ences at  Ucline,  and  signed,  with  the  Austrian  plenipotentiaries, 
the  peace  of  Campo  Formic,  on  the  17th  of  October,  1797. 

During  1798,  1799,  and  1800,  he  resided  as  Neapolitan  am- 
bassador at  Vienna,  and  was  again  entrusted  by  his  Sovereign 
with  several  important  transactions  with  Austria  and  Russia. 
After  a  peace  had  been  agreed  to  between  France  and  the  Two 
Sicilies,  in  March,  1801,  and  the  Court  of -Naples  had  every  rea- 
son to  fear,  and  of  course  to  please,  the  Court  of  &t.  Cloud,  he 
obtained  his  present  appointment,  and  is  one  of  the  few  ambassa- 
dors here,  who  has  escaped  both  Buonaparte's  firivate  admoni- 
tions in  the  diplomatic  circle,  and  public  lectures  in  Madame, 
Buonaparte's  drawing-room. 

This  escape  is  so  much  the  more  fortunate  and  singular,  as 
our  government  is  far  from  being  content  with  the  mutinous  spi- 
rit (as  Buonaparte  calls  it)  of  the  government  of  Naples  ;  which, 
considering  its  precarious  and  enfeebled  state,  with  a  French 
army  in  the  heart  of  the  kingdom,  has  resisted  our  attempts,  aiidi 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  95 

\A 

insults  with  a  courage  and  dignity  that  demands  our  admira- 
tion. 

It  is  said  that  the  Marquis  de  Gallo  is  not  entirely  free  from: 
some  taints  of  modern  philosophy  ;  and  that  he,  therefore,  does' 
not  consider  the  consequences  of  our  innovations  so  fatal  as  most 
of  our  loyal  men  judge  them  ;  nor  thinks  a  sans-culotte  Emperor 
more  dangerous  to  civilized  society  than  a  sans-culotte  sovereign 
people. 

It  is  evident,  from  the»names  and  rank  of  its  partisans,  that 
the  Revolution  of  Naples,  in  1799,  -was  different,  in  many  re- 
spects, from  every  other  country  in  Europe.  For,  although  the 
political  convulsions  seem  to  have  originated  among  the  middle 
classes  of  the  community,  the  extremes  of  society  were  every  where" 
el«  made  to  act  against  each  other  ;  the  rahble  being  the  first  to 
triumph,  and  the  nobles  to  succumb.  But  here,  on  the  contrary, 
the  lazzaroni,  composed  of  the  lowest  portion  of  the  population 
of  a  luxurious  capital,  appear  to  have  been  the  most  strenuou s, 
and  indeed  almost  the  only  supporters  of  Royalty  ;  while  the 
great  families,  instead  of  being  indignant  at  novelties  which  le- 
velled them,  in  point  of  political  rights,  with  the  meanest  subject, 
eagerly  embraced  the  opportunity  of  altering  that  form  of  go- 
vernment, which  alone  made  them  great.  It  is,  however,  but 
jtistice  to  say,  that  though  Marquis  de  Gallo  gained  the  good 
graces  of  Buonaparte  and  of  France,  in  1-797,  he  was  never  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  inculpated  in  the  revolutionary  transactions, 
of  his  countrymen  in  1799,  when  he  resided  at  Vienna  ;  and  in* 
deed,  after  all,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  disguises  his  real  sen- 
timents, the  better  to  serve  his  country,  and  by  that  means  has 
imposed  on  Buonaparte,  and  acquired  his  favour. 

The  address  and  manners  of  a  courtier  are  allowed  Marquis  de 
Gallo,  by  all  who  know  him,  though  few  admit  that  he  possesses 
any  t.ilents  as  a  statesman.  He  is  s-jdd  to  have  read  a  great  deal, 
to  possess  a  good  memory,  and  no  bad  judgment :  but  that,  not- 
withstanding this,  ail  his  knowledge  is  superficial,  aliquid  in  qmni*, 
bus  ('t  nil  ill  i-i  toto, 


94  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER    XXIV. 

Paris,  August)    1805:. 

MY    LORD, 

YOU  have,  perhaps,  heard,  that  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  with 
all  his  brothers  and  sisters,  was  last  Christmas  married  by  the 
Pope,  according  to  the  Roman  Catholic  rite  ;  being  previously 
only  united^  according  to  the  municipal  laws  of  the  French 
Republic,  which  consider  marriage  only  as  a  civil  contract. 
During  the  two  last  months  of  his  ^loliness's  residence  here, 
hardly  a  day  passed  that  he  was  not  petitioned  to  perform  the 
same  ceremony  for  our  conscientious  grand  functionaries  and 
courtiers,  which  he,  however,  according-  to  the  Emperor's  desire, 
declined.  But  his  Cardinals  were  not  under  the  sume  restric- 
tions :  and  to  an  attentive  observer,  who  has  watched  the  progress 
of  the  Revolution,  and  not  lost  sight  of  its  actors,  nothing  could 
appear  more  ridiculous,  nothing  cpuld  inspire  more  contempt  of 
our  versatility  and  inconsistency,  than  to  remark,  among  the 
foremost  to  demand  a  nuptial  benediction,  a  Talleyrand,  a 
Fouche,  a  Real,  an  Angereau,  a  Chaptal,  a  Reubel,  a  Lasnes,  a 
Bessieres,  aThuriot,  a  Treilhard,  a  Merlin,  with  a  hundred  other 
equally  notorious  revolutionists,  who  were,  twelve  or  fifteen  years 
ago,  not  only  the  first  to  declaim  against  religious  ceremonies  as 
ridiculous,  but  against  religion  itself  as  useless:  whose  motives 
produced,  and  whose  votes  sanctioned  those  decrees  of  the  legis- 
lature, which  proscribed  the  worship,  together  with  its  priests 
and  sectaries.  But  then  the  fashion  of  barefaced  infidelity  was 
as  much  the  order  of  the  day,  as  that  of  external  sanctity  is  at 
present.  I  leave  to  casuists  the  decision,  whether  to  the  morals 
of  the  people,  naked  atheism,  exposed  with  all  its  deformities,  is 
more  or  less  hurtful,  than  concealed  atheism  covered  with  the 
garb  of  piety  ;  but  for  my  part,  I  think  the  noon-day  murderer 
less  guilty,  and  much  less  detestable,  than  the  midnight  assassin 
who  stabs  in  the  dark. 

A  hundred  anecdotes  are  daily  related  of  our  new  saints,  and 
fashionable  devotees  ;  they  would  be  laughable,  were  they  not 
scandalous  j  and  contemptible!  did  they  not  add  duplicity  to  OUR 
other  vices. 

Buonaparte  and  his  wife  go  now  every  morning  to  hear  mass, 
and  on  every  Sunday  or  holiday,  they  regularly  attend  at  \se.s- 


COURT  OF,  ST.  CLOUD.  9$ 

pevs  ;  when,  of  course,  all  those  who  wish  to  be  distinguished 
by  their  piety,  or  rewarded  for  their  flattery,  never  neglect  to  be 
present.  In  the  evening  of  last  Christmas-day,  the  ^mperial 
chapel  was,  as  usual,  early  crowded,  in  expectation  of  their  Ma- 
jesties ;  when  the  chamberlain  Salmatoris  entered,  and  said  to 
the  captain  of  the  guard,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  the  au- 
dience, the  Emperor  and  the  Empress  have  just  resolved  not  to 
come  here  to  night ;  his  Majesty  being  engaged  by  some  unex- 
pected business,  and  the  Empress  not  wishing  to  come  without 
her  consort.  In  ten  minutes,  the  chapel  was  emptied  of  every 
person  but  the  guards,  the  priests,  and  three  old  women,  who 
had  no  where  else  to  pass  an  hour.  At  the  arrival  of  our  Sove- 
reigns, they  were  astonished  at  the  unusual  vacancy,  and  indig- 
nantly regarded  each  other.  After  vespers  were  over,  one  of 
Bifonaparte's  spies  informed  him  of  the  cause  ;  when,  instead  of 
punishing  the  despicable  and  hypocritical  courtiers,  or  showing 
them  any  signs  of  his  displeasure,  he  ordered  Salmatoris  under 
arrest ;  who  would  have  experienced  a  complete  disgrace,  had 
not  his  friend  Duroc  interfered,  and  made  his  peace. 

At  another  time,  on  a  Sunday,  Fouche  entered  the  chapel  in 
the  midst  of  the  service,  and  whispered  to  Buonaparte,  who  im- 
mediately beckoned  to  his  lord  in  waiting,  and  to  Duroc. 

These  both  left  the  Imperial  chapel,  and  returning  in  a  few 
minutes  at  the  head  of  five  grenadiers,  entered  the  grand  gal- 
lery, generally  frequented  by  the  most  scrupulous  devotees,  and 
seized  every  book.  The  cause  of  this  domici.iary  visit  was  an 
anonymous  communication  received  by  the  minister  of  police, 
stating,  that  libels  against  the  imperial  family,  bound  in  the  form 
of  prayer  books,  had  been  placed  there.  No  such  libels  were 
however  found:  but  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  pretended  brevi- 
aries, twenty-eight  were  volumes  of  novels,  sixteen  of  poems,  and 
eleven  of  indecent  books.  It  is  not  necessary  to  add,  that  the  pro- 
prietors of  these  edifying1  works  never  reclaimed  them.  The  o- 
pinions  are  divided  here,  whether  this  envious  discovery  origina- 
ted in  the  malice  of  Fouche,  or  whether  Talleyrand  took  this 
method  of  duping  his  rival,  and  at  the  same  time  of  gratifying 
his  own  malignity.  Certain  it  is,  that  Fouche,  was  severely  re- 
primanded for  the  transaction,  and  that  Buonaparte  was  hi  ghly 
offended  at  the  disclosure. 


96  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

The  common  people,  and  the  middle  classes,  are  neither  so 
ostentatiously  devout,  nor  so  basely  perverse.  They  go  to  church 
as  to  the  play,  to  gape  at  others,  or  to  be  stared  at  themselves  ; 
to  pass  the  time,  and  to  admire  the  show  :  and  they  do  not  con- 
ceal that  such  is  the  object  of  their  attendance.  Their  indiffer- 
ence about  futurity  equals  their  ignorance  of  religious  duties.  Our 
revolutionary  charlatans  have  as  much  brutalized  their  under- 
standing, as  corrupted  tli'jir  hearts.  They  heard  the  grand  mass 
said  by  the  Pope  with  the  same  feelings  as  they  formerly  heard 
Robespierre  proclaim  himself  a  high  priest  of  a  supreme  Being  ; 
and  they  looked  at  the  imperial  processions  with  the  same  insen- 
sibility as  they  once  saw  the  daily  caravans  of  victims  passing  for 
execution. 

Even  in  Buonaparte's  own  guard,  and  among  the  officers  of 
his  household  troops,  several  examples  of  rigour  were  necessa- 
ry, before  they  would  go  to  any  place  of  worship,  or  suffer  in- 
their  corps  any  almoners  :  but  now,  after  being  drilled  into  a  be* 
lief  of  Christianity,  they  march  to  the  mass  as  to  a  parade  or  to 
a  review.  With  any  other  people,  Buonaparte  would  not  so  easily 
have  changed  in  two  years  the  customs  of  twelve,  and  forced 
military  men  to  kneel  before  priests,  whom  they  but  the  other 
day  were  encouraged  to  hunt  and  massacre  like  wild  beasts. 

On  the  day  of  the  assumption  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  a  company 
of  gens-d'armes  d'Elite,  headed  by  their  officers,  received  public- 
ly and  by  orders,  the  sacrament ;  when  the  Abbe  Frelaud  ap- 
proached towards  Lieutenant  Ledcux,  he  f^U  into  convulsions, 
and  was  carried  into  the  sacristy.  After  being  a  little  recovered, 
he  looked  round  him,  as  if  afraid  that  some  one  would  injure 
him  ;  and  said  to  the  grand  vicar  Clauset,  who  inquired  the  cause 
of  his  accident  and  terror  :  "  Good  God  1  that  man  who  gav  ; 
me,  on  .the  2ci  of  September,  1792,  the  five  wouads  in  t>  e  con- 
vent of  the  Carenes,  from  whcih  I  still  suffer,  is  now  an  officer, 
and  was  about  to  receive  the  sacrament  from  my  hands."  When 
this  occurrence  wns  reported  to  Buonaparte,  Lecoux  was  dis- 
mi y.-.ed ;  but  \bbe  Frelaud  was  transported,  and  the  grand  vicar 
Clauset  se  t  to  the  Temple,  for  the  scandal  their  i  .m  had 

caused.  This  cct  was  certainly  as  unjust  tov,  :  -•':,  -m  who 
was  bayoneted  to  the  altar,  as  towards  i:.<ose  who  served  the 
altar,  under  the  protection  of  the  bayonets. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  «7 

LETTER  XXV. 

\ 

Paris  j  August^  1805. 

.MY   LORD, 

ALTHOUGH  the  seizure  of  Sir  George  Rumbold  might  in 
your  country,  as  well  as  every  where  else,  inspire  indignation,  it 
could  no  where  justly  excite  surprise.  We  had  crossed  the 
Rhine  seven  months  before,  to  seize  the  Duke  d'Enghein  :  and, 
when  any  prey  invited,  the  passing  of  the  Elbe  was  only  a  natu- 
ral consequence  of  the  former  outrage ;  of  audacity  on  our  part^ 
and  of  endurance  or  indifference  on  the  part  of  other  Continental 
States.  Talleyrand's  note  at  Aix  la  Chapelle  had  also  informed 
Europe  that  we  had  adopted  anew  and  military  diplomacy  ;  and, 
in  confounding  power  with  right,  would  respect  no  privileges  at 
variance  with  our  ambition,  interest,  or  suspicions,  or  any  inde- 
pendence it  was  thought  useful  or  convenient  for  us  to  invade. 

It  was  reported  here,  at  the  time,  that  Buonaparte  was  much 
offended  with  General  Frere,  who  commanded  this  political  ex- 
pedition, for  permitting  Sir  George's  servant  to  accompany  his 
master  ;  as  Fouche  and  Real  had  already  tortures  prepared  and 
racks  waiting,  and,  after  forcing  your  agent  to  speak  out,  would 
have  announced  his  sudden  death,  either  by  his  own  hands,  or  by 
a  cou/i-de-sang,  before  any  Prussian  note  could  require  his  release. 
The  known  morality  of  our  government  must  have  removed  all 
doubts  of  the  veracity  of  this  assertion  ;  a  man  might,  besides, 
from  the  fatigues  of  a  long  journey,  or  from  other  causes,  expire 
suddenly  ;  but  the  exit  of  two,  in  the  same  circumstances,  would 
have  been  thought  at  least  extraordinary,  even  by  our  friends, 
and  suspicious  by  our  enemies. 

The  official  declaration  of  Rheinhard  (our  minister  to  the  Cir- 
cle of  Lower  Saxony)  to  the  Senate  at  Hamburgh,  in  which  he 
disavowed  all  knowledge  on  the  subject  of  the  capture  of  Sir 
George  Rumbold,  occasioned  his  disgrace.  This  man,  a  subject 
of  the  Elector  of  Wirtemberg,  by  birth,  is  one  of  the  negative  ac- 
complices of  the  criminals  of  France,  who,  since  the  Revolution, 
have  desolated  Europe.  He  began,  in  1792,  his  diplomatic  ca- 
reer, under  Chauvelin  and  Talleyrand,  in  London,  and  has  since 
been  the  tool  of  every  faction  in  power.  In  1796,  he  was  appoint- 
ed a  minister  to  the  Hanse  Towns  j  and,  without  knowing  why, 


93  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

was  hailed  as  the  point  of  rally  to  all  the  philosophers,  philanthro- 
pists, illuminati,  and  other  revolutionary  amateurs,  with  whom, 
the  north  of  Germany,  Poland,  Denmark,  and  Sweden  then 
abounded.  A  citizen  of  Hamburgh,  or  rather  of  the  world,  of  the 
name  of  Seveking,  bestowed  on  him  the  hand  of  a  sister :  and, 
though  he  is  not  accused  of  avarice,  some  of  the  contributions, 
extorted  by  our  government  from  the  neutral  Hanse  Towns,  are 
said  to  have  been  left  behind  in  his  coffers,  instead  of  being  for- 
warded to  this  capital.  Either  en  this  account,  or  for  some  other 
reason,  he  was  recalled  from  Hamburgh,  in  January,  1797,  and 
remained  unemployed  until  the  latter  part  of  1793,  when  he  was- 
sent  a  minister  to  Tuscany^ 

When,  in  the  summer  of  1799,  Talleyrand  was  forced  by  the 
Jacobins  to  resign  his  place  as  a  minister  of  the  foreign  depart- 
ment, he  had  the  adroitness  to  procure  Rheinhard  to  be  nomi- 
nated his  successor.  So  that,  though  no  longer  nominally  the 
Jiihiiste*-,  lie  still  continued  to  influence  the  decisions  of  our  go- 
vernment as  much  as  if  still  in  office  ;  because,  though  not  with- 
out parts,  Rheinhard  has  neither  energy  of  character,  nor  con- 
sistency of  conduct.  He  is  so  much  accustomed,  and  wants  so 
much  to  be  governed,  that,  in  1796,  at  Hamburgh,  even  the  then 
emigrants,  Madame  de  Geniis,  and  General  Valence,  directed 
him,  when  he  was  not  ruled  or  dictated  to  by  his  v.ife,  or  brother- 
in-law. 

In  1 800,  Buonaparte  sent  him  as  a  representative  to  the  Hel- 
vetian Republic,  and,  in  1802,  again  to  Hamburgh;  where  he 
was  last  wirsttr  superseded  by  Bourrienne,  and  ordered  to  an  in- 
ferior station  at  the  Electoral  Court  at  Dresden .  Rheinhard  will 
never  become  one  of  those  during  diplomatic  banditti,  whom  re- 
volutionary governments  always  employ  in  preference.  He  has 
some  moral  principles,  and,  though  not  religious,  is  rather  scru- 
pulous. He  would  certainly  sooner  resign,  than  Undertake  to  re- 
move by  poison,  or  by  the  steel  of  a  bravo,  a  rival  of  his  o\vn,  or 
a  person  obnoxious  to  his  employers.  He  would  never,  indeed, 
bet.r.'.y  the  secrets  of  his  government,  if  he  understood  they  intend- 
ed to  rob  a  dispatch,  or  to  stop  a  messenger  ;  but  no  allurements 
whatever  would  induce  him  to  head  the  parties  perpetrating  tries'1 
acts  of  modern  diplomacy. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  99 

Our  present  minister  at  Hamburgh,  Bourrienne,  is  far  from 
being  so  nice.  A  revolutionist  from  the  beginning  of  the  Revo- 
lution, he  shared  with  the  partisans  of  La  Fayette's  imprison- 
ment under  Robespierre,  and  escaped  death  only  by  emigration. 
Recalled  afterwards  by  his  friend,  the  late  Director,  Surras,  he 
acted  as  a  kind  of  secretary  to  him  until  1796,  when  Buona- 
parte demanded  him,  having  known  him  at  the  military  col- 
lege. During  all  Buonaparte's  campaigns  in  Italy,  Egypt, 
and  Syria,  he  was  his  sole  and  confidential  secretary  ;  a 
situation  which  he  lost  in  1802,  when  Talleyrand  denounced  his 
corruption  and  cupidity  ;  because  he  had  rivalled  him  in  specu- 
lating in  the  funds,  and  profiting  by  the  information  whk  hk 
place  afforded  him.  He  was  then  made  a  counsellor  of  state  ; 
but  in  1803  he  was  involved  in  the  fraudulent  bankruptcy  of  on?, 
of  our  principal  houses,  to  the  amount  of  a  million  of  livres, 
42,000/.  ;  and  from  his  correspondence  with  it,  some  reasons 
appeared  to  suspect  that  he  frequently  had  committed  a  breach 
of  confidence  against  his  master  ;  who,  alter  erasing  his  name 
from  among  the  counsellors  of  state,  had  him  conveyed  a  prison- 
er to  the  Temple,  w nere  he  remained  six  months.  A  si 
lume,  called  JLt  l^zvre  Hong?  of  the  Consular  Court,  mace  its  ap- 
pearance about  that  tiaie,  and  contained  some  articles,  which 
gave  Buonaparte  reason  to  suppose  that  Bourrienne  was  its  au- 
thor. On  being  questioned  by  tne  grand  judge  Rcgnier,  and  the 
minister  Fouche,  before  whom  he  was  carried,  he  avow 
he  had  written  it,  but  denied  that  he  had  any  intention  of  mak- 
ing- it  public.  As  to  ks  having  found  its  way  to  the  press,  dur- 
ing his  confinement,  that  coukl  only  be  ascribed  to  the  ill  will  or 
treachery  of  those  police  agents  who  inspected  his  papers,  and 
put  their  seals  upon  them.  "  Tell  Buon ^paite,"  saia  he,  "  that 
had  I  been  inclined  to  injure  him  in  ib.o  public  opinion,  I  should 
not  have  stooped  to  such  trifles  as  JLe  Livre  Rouge^  while  I  have 
deposited  with  a  friend  his  original  orders,  letter;,  and  other  cu- 
rious documents,  as  materials  for  an  edifying  history  of  our  i 
ry  hospitals,  duiing  the  campaigns  of  Italy  and  Syria  ;  ail  UUUKH- 
tic  testimonies  of  his  humanity  and  tenderness  for  the  wounded 
and  dying  French  soldiers."  * 

Alter  the  answers  of  this  interrogatory  had  been  laid  before 
Buonaparte,  his  brother  Joseph  was  sent  to  the  Temple  to  neg-o- 


100  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tiate  with  Bourrienne,  who  was  offered  his  liberty,  and  a  prefec- 
ture, if  he  would  give  up  all  the  original  papers,  that,  as  a  pri- 
vate secretary,  he  had  had  opportunity  to  collect.  "  These  pa- 
pers/' answered  Bourrienne,  "  are  my  only  security  against 
your  brother's  wrath,  and  bis  assassins.  Were  I  weak  enough 
to  deliver  them  up  to-day,  to-morrow,  probably,  I  should  no  longer 
be  counted  among  the  living ;  but  I  have  now  taken  my  mea- 
sures so  effectually,  that  were  I  murdered  to-day,  these  originals 
"would  be  printed  to-morrow.  If  Napoleone  does  not  confide  in 
ray  word  of  honour,  he  may  trust  to  an  assurance  of  discretion 
•with  which  my  own  interest  is  nearly  connected.  If  he  suspects 
tne  of  having  wronged  him,  he  is  convinced  also  01  the  eminent 
services  I  have  rendered  him,  sufficient  surely  to  outweigh  his 
present  suspicion.  Let  him  again  employ  rue  in  any  post  worthy 
of  him  and  of  me,  and  he  shall  soon  see  how  much  I  will  endeav- 
our to  regain  his  confidence." 

Shortly  afterwards  Bounienne  was  released,  and  a  salary, 
equal  to  that  of  a  counsellor  of  state,  was  granted  him,  until  some 
suitable  place  became  vacant.  On  Champagny's  being  appoint- 
ed u  minister  of  the  home  department,  the  embassy  at  Vienna 
was  demanded  by  Bourrienne,  but  refused,  as  previously  promis- 
ed to  Rochefoucault,  our  late  minister  at  Dresden.  When  Rhein- 
hard,  in  a  kind  of  disgrace,  was  transferred  to  that  relatively  in- 
significant post,  Bourrienne  was  ordered  with  extensive  instruc- 
tions, to  Hamburgh.  The  Senate  soon  found  the  difference  be- 
tween a  timid  and  honest  minister,  and  an  unprincipled  and 
crafty  intriguer.  New  loans  were  immediately  required  from 
Hamburgh  ;  but  hardly  were  these  acquitted,  than  fresh  extor- 
tions were  insisted  on.  In  some  secret  conferences,  Bounienne 
is  however  said  to  have  hinted,  that  some  douceurs  were  expect- 
ed, for  alleviating  the  rigour  of  his  instructions.  This  hint  has 
no  doubt  been  taken,  because  he  suddenly  altered  his  conduct, 
and  instead  of  hunting  the  purses  of  the  Germans,  pursued  the 
persons  of  his  emigrated  countrymen  ;  and,  in  a  memorial,  de- 
manded the  expulsion  of  all  Frenchmen,  who  were  not  registered 
and  protected  by  him,  under  the  pretence  that  every  one  of  them 
who  declined  the  honour  of  being  a  subject  of  Buonaparte  must 
be  a  traitor  against  the  French  government  and  his  country. 


COURT  OF  ST.  OLOUO.  10 1 

Bourrienne  is  now  stated  to  have  connected  himself  with  seve- 
ral stock-jobbers,  in  Germany,  in  Holland,  and  in  England  ;  and 
already  to  have  pocketed  considerable  sums  by  such  connexions. 
It  is,  however,  not  to  be  forgotten,  that  several  houses  have  been 
ruined  in  this  capital  by  the  jirofiia  allowed  him,  who  always  re- 
fused to  share  their  losses  ;  but,  whatever  were  the  consequen- 
ces, enforced  to  its  full  amount  the  payment  of  that  value,  which 
he  chose  to  set  on  his  communications. 

A  place  in  France  would  no  doubt  have  been  prefered  by 
Bourrienne,  particularly  one  near  the  person  of  Buonaparte. 
But  if  nothing- else  prevented  the  accomplishment  of  his  \vishes, 
his  long  familiarity  with  all  the  Buonapartes,  whom  he  always 
treated  as  equals,  and  even  now  (with  the  exception  of  Napo- 
leone)  does  not  think  his  superiors,  will  long  remain  an  insur- 
mountable barrier. 

I  cannot  comprehend  how  Buonaparte  (who  is  certainly  no  had 
judge  of  men)  could  so  long  confide  in  Bourrienne,  who,  with 
the  usual  presumption  of  my  countrymen,  is  continually  boast- 
ing, to  a  degree  that  borders  on  indiscretion,  and,  by  an  artful 
questioner,  may  be  easily  led  to  overstep  those  bounds.  Most- 
of  the  particulars  of  his  quarrel  with  Napoleone  I  heard  him  re- 
late himself,  as  a  proof  of  his  great  consequence,  in  a  company 
of  forty  individuals,  many  of  whom  were  unknown  to  him. 

On  the  first  discovery  which  Buonaparte  made  of  Bourriennc's 
infidelity,  Talleyrand  complimented  him  upon  not  having  suffer- 
ed more  from  it.  "  Do  you  not  see,"  answered  Buonaparte,  "  it 
is  also  one  of  the  extraordinary  gifts  of  my  extraordinary  good 
fortune  ?  Even  traitors  are  unable  to  betray  me.  Plots  respect 
me  as  much  as  bulbts."  I  need  not  tell  you,  that  Fortune  is  the 
sole  divinity  sincerely  worshipped  by  Napoleone, 


102  S'ECRET  HISTORY   OF  THE 

LETTER   XXVI. 

Paris,  August^   1805. 

MY    LORD, 

JOSEPH  BUONAPARTE  leads  a  much  more  retired  life, 
and  sees  less  company,  than  any  of  his  brothers  or  sisters.  Ex- 
cept the  members  of  his  own  family,  he  but  seldom  invites  any 
guests,  nor  has  Madame  Joseph  those  regular  assemblies  and 
circles  which  Madam  Napoleone  and  Madame  Louis  Buonaparte 
have.  His  hospitality  is,  however,  greater  at  his  country  seat, 
Morfontaine,  than  at  his  hotel  here.  Those  whom  he  likes,  or 
does  not  mistrust,  (who,  by  the  bye,  are  very  few)  may  visit  him 
•without  much  formality  in  the  country,  and  prolong  their  stay  ac- 
cording to  their  own  inclination  or  discretion  ;  but  they  must- 
come  vrithout  their  servants,  or  send  them  away  on  their  ar- 
rival. 

As  soon  as  an  agreeable  visitor  presents  himself,  it  is  the  eti- 
quette of  the  house  to  consider  him  as  an  inmate  ;  but  to  allow 
him  at  the  same  time  a  perfect  liberty  to  dispose  of  his  hours  and 
his  person,  as  suits  his  convenience  or  caprice.  In  this  exten- 
sive and  superb  mansion,  a  suit  of  apartments  is  assigned  him, 
with  a  valet-de-chambre,  a  lacquey,  a  coachman,  a  groom,  and 
a  jockey,  all  under  his  own  exclusive  command.  He  has  allot- 
ted him  a  chariot,  a  gig,  and  riding-horses,  if  he  prefers  such  an 
exercise.  A  catalogue  is  given  him  of  the  library  of  the  chateau ; 
and  every  morning  he  is  informed  what  persons  compose  the 
company  at  breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper,  and  of  the  hours  of 
these  different  repasts.  A  bill  of  fare  is  at  the  same  time  pre- 
sented to  him,  and  he  is  asked  to  point  out  those  dishes  to  which 
he  gives  the  preference,  and  to  declare  whether  he  chuses  to  join 
the  company,  or  to  be  served  in  his  own  rooms. 

During  the  summer  season,  players  from  the  different  thea- 
tres of  Paris  are  paid  to  perform  three  times  in  the  week  ;  and 
each  guest,  according  to  the  period  of  his  arrival,  is  asked  in  his 
turn  to  command  either  a  comedy  or  a  tragedy,  a  farce  or  a 
ballet.  Twice  in  the  week,  concerts  are  executed  by  the  first 
performers  of  the  Opera  Buffa ;  and  twice  in  the  week  invitations 
to  tea-parties  are  sent  to  some  of  the  neighbours,  or  accepted 

\m  them. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  lOfl 

Besides  font'  billiard-tables,  there  are  other  gambling  tables 
for  Rouge  ct  Noir^  Trent e  et  Quarante^  Pharo,  La  Roulette  Bir- 
ribi,  and  other  games  of  hazard.  The  bankers  are  young  men 
from  Corsica,  to  whom  Joseph,  who  advances  the  money,  allows 
all  the  gain,  while  he  alone  suffers  the  loss.  Those  who  are  in- 
clined, may  play  from  morning  till  night,  and  from  night  till 
morning,  without  interruption,  as  no  one  interferes.  Should 
Joseph  hear  that  any  person  has  been  too  severely  treated  by  for- 
tune, or  suspects  that  he  has  not  much  cash  remaining,  some 
vault,  aus  of  Nafioleone's  d'ors  are  placed  on  the  table  of  his  dress- 
ing-room, which  he  may  use  or  leave  untouched,  as  he  judges 
proper. 

The  hours  of  Joseph  Buonaparte,  are  neither  so  late  as  yours 
in  England,  nor  so  early  as  they  were  formerly  in  France. 
Breakfast  is  ready  served  at  ten  o'clock,  dinner  at  four,  and  sup- 
per at  nine.  Before  midnight,  he  retires  to  bed  with  his  fa- 
mily ;  but  visitors  do  as  they  like,  and  follow  their  own  usual 
hours,  and  their  servants  are  obliged  to  wait  for  them. 

When  any  business  calls  Joseph  away,  either  to  preside  in  the 
Senate  here,  or  to  travel  in  the  provinces,  he  notices  it  to  his  vi- 
sitors ;  telling  them  at  the  same  time  not  to  displace  themselves 
on  account  of  his  absence,  but  wait  till  his  return,  as  they  would 
not  observe  any  difference  in  the  economy  of  his  house,  of  which 
Madame  Joseph  always  does  the  honours,  or,  in  her  absence, 
some  lady  appointed  by  her. 

Last  year,  when  Joseph  first  assumed  a  military  rank,  he  pass- 
ed nearly  four  months  with  the  army  of  England  on  the  coast,  or 
in  Brabant.  On  his  return,  all  his  visitors  were  gone,  except  a 
young  poet  of  the  name  of  Montaigne,  who  does  not  want  ge- 
nius, but  who  is  rather  too  fond  of  the  bottle.  Joseph  is  considered 
the  best  gourmet^  or  connoisseur  in  liquors  and  wines,  of  this  ca- 
pital ;  and  Montaigne  found  his  Champaigne  and  Bourgogne  so 
excellent,  that  he  never  once  went  to  bed  that  he  was  not  heartily- 
intoxicated.  But  the  best  of  the  story  is,  that  he  employed  his 
mornings  in  composing  a  poem,  holding  out  to  abhorrence  the 
disgusting  vice  of  drunkenness ;  and  presented  it  to  Joseph,  re- 
questing permission  to  dedicate  it  to  him  when  published.  To 
those  who  have  read  it,  or  only  seen  extracts  from  it,  the  compi- 
lation appears  far  from  being  contemptible ;  but  Joseph  etil,? 


I>)i  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

keeps  the  copy,  though  he  has  made  the  author  a  present  of  ©fle 
hundred  Napoieone  ti'ors,  and  procured  him  a  place  of  an  ama- 
nuensis in  the  Chancellory  of  the  Senate,  having  resolved  never 
to  accept  any  dedication,  but  wishing  also  not  to  hurt  the  feel- 
ings of  the  author  by  a  refusal. 

In  a  chateau  where  so  many  visitors  of  licentious  and  depraved 
morals  meet,  of  both  sexes,  and  \vaerc  such  an  unlimited  liberty 
reigns,  intiigues  must  occur,  and  have  of  course  not  seldom  fur- 
nished materials  for  the  scandalous  chronicle.  Even  Madame 
Joseph  herself  has  either  been  gallant  or  calumniated.  Report 
says,  that  to  the  nocturnal  assiduities  of  Eugenius  de  Beauhar- 
nois,  and  of  Colonel  La  Fond-Blaniac,  she  is  exclusively  indebted 
for  the  honour  of  maternity,  and  that  these  two  rivals  even  fought 
a  duel  concerning  the  right  of  paternity.  Eugenius  de  Beau- 
harocis  never  \vas  a  great  favourite  with  Joseph  Buonaparte, 
yvhose  reserved  manners,  and  prudence,  form  too  great  a  contrast 
to  his  noi&y  and  blundering  way,  to  accord  with  each  other.  Be- 
fore he  set  out  for  Italy,  il  was  well  known  in  our  fashionable  cir- 
cles, that  he  had  been  interdicted  tlie  house  of  his  uncle,  and  that 
no  reconciliation  took  place,  notwithstanding  the  endeavours  of 
Madame  Napoleone.  To  humble  him  so  much  the  more,  Jo- 
seph even  nomhr;.ted  Lu  Fond-Biuniuc  an  equerry  to  his  wife, 
who  therefore  easily  consoled  herself  for  the  departure  of  her 
dear  nephew. 

The  husband  of  Madame  Miot(oncof  Madame  Joseph's  ladies 
in  wailing)  wus  not  so  patient,  or  such  a  pnilosopher  as  Joseph 
Buonaparte.  Some  charitable  person  having  reported  in  the  com- 
pany via.bo7ine  amis  of  Miot,  that  hi^  wife  did  not  pass  her  nights 
in  solitude,  but  that  she  sought  consckaion  among  the  many 
gallants  and  disengaged  visitors  at  Morfontaine,  he  determined 
to  surprise  her.  It  was  past  eleven  o'clock  at  night  when  his  ar- 
rival was  announced  to  Joseph,  just  retired  to  Ids  closet.  Ma- 
dame Miot  had  been  in  bed  ever  since  nine,  il)  of  a  migraine,  and 
her  husband  was  too  affectionate  not  to  be  the  first  to  inform  her 
of  his  presence,  without  permitting  any  body  previously  to  dis- 
turb her.  With  great  reluctance,  Madame  Miot's  maid  deliver- 
ed the  key  of  her  rooms,  while  she  accompanied  him  with  a 
In  the  anti-chamber  he  found  a  hat  and  a  great-coat,  and 
in  the  closet  adjoining  the  bed-room,  a  coat  a  waistcoat,  and  a 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  105 

pair  of  breeches,  with  drawers,  stockings,  and  slippers.     Though 
the  maid  kept  coughing  all  the  time,  Madame  Miot  and  her  gal- 
lant did  not  awake  from  their  slumber  till  the   enraged   husband 
begun  to  use  the  bludgeon  of  the  lover,    which  had  also  been  left 
in  the  closet.     A  battle  then  ensued,  in  which  the  lover  retaliated 
so  vigoui  ously,  that   the  husband  called  out  murder !  murder  1 
with  all  his  might.  The  chateau  was  instantly  in  an  uproar,  and 
the  apartments  crowded  with  half  dressed  and  half  naked  lovers. 
Joseph  Buonaparte  alone  was  able  to  separate  the  combatants ; 
and  inquiring  the  cause  of  the  riot,   assured  them  that  he   would 
suiVer  no  scandal  and  no  intrigues  in  his  house,  without  seriously 
resenting  it.     An  explanation  being  made,  Madame  Miot  was 
looked  for,  but  in  vain  ;  and  the  maid  declared,  that  being  warn- 
ed by  a  letter  from  Paris  of  her  husband's  jealousy  and  deter- 
mination to  surprise  her,  her  mistress  had  reposed  herself  in  hep 
room  ;  while,    to  punish  the  ungenerous  suspicions  of  her  hus- 
band, she  had  persuaded  Captain  d'llorteuil  to  occupy  her  place 
in  her  own  bed.     The  maid  had  no  sooner  finished    her  deposi- 
tion,   than   her   mistress  made  her  appearance,  and  upbraided 
her  husband  severely,   in  which  she  was  cordially  joined  by  the 
spectators.     She  inquired  if,  on  seeing  the  dress  of  a  gentleman, 
he  had  also  discovered  the  attire  of  a  female  ?  and  she  appealed 
to  Captain  d'J  lorteuil,  whether  he  had   not  the  two  preceding 
nights  also  slept  in  her  bed.  To  this  he  of  course  assented  ;   add- 
ing, that  had  M.  Miot  attacked  him  the  first  night,  he  would 
not  then  perhaps  have  been  so  roughly  handled  as  now  ;  for  then 
he  was  prepared  for  a  visit,  which  this  night  was  rather  unex- 
pected.     This   connubial  farce  ended  by  Miot  begging  pardon 
of  his  wife  and  her  gallant ;  the  former  of  whom,  after  much  en- 
treaty by  Joseph,  at  last  consented  to  share  with  him  her  bed. 
But  being  disfigured  with  two  black  eyes,  and  suffering  from  se- 
veral bruises,  and  also  ashamed  of  his  unfashionable  behaviour, 
he  continued  in-visible  for  ten  days  afterwards,  and  returned  to 
this  city  as  he  had  left  it,  by  stealth. 

This  Miot  was  ,a  spy  under  Robespierre,  and  is  a  counsellor 
of  state  under  Buonaparte.  Without  bread,  as  well  as  without  a 
home,  he  was  from  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  one  of  the 
most  ardent  patriots^  and  the  first  republican  minister  in  Tus- 
cany. After  the  Sovereign  of  that  country  had,  in  1793,  joined 


J.00  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  league,  Miot  returned  to  France,  and  was,  for  his  v/ant  of  atU 
dress  to  negotiate  as  a  minister,  shut  up,  to  perform  the  part  of  a 
spy  in  the  Luxembourg!!,  then  transformed  into  a  prison  of 
suspected  persons.  Thanks  to  his  patriotism,  upwards  of  two 
hundred  individuals,  of  both  sex^s,  were  denounced,  transferred 
to  the  Conciergerie  prison,  and  afterwards  guillotined.  After 
that,  until  1799,  he  continued  so  despised,  that  no  faction  would 
accept  him  for  an  accomplice  ;  but  in  the  November  of  that  year, 
after  Buonaparte  had  declared  himself  a  First  Consul,  Miot  was 
appointed  a  tribune,  an  office  from  which  he  was  advanced,  in 
1802,  to  be  a  counsellor  of  state.  As  Miot  squanders  a  way  his 
salary  with  harlots,  and  in  gambling  houses,  and  is  pursu 
.creditors  he  neither  will  nor  can  pay,  it  was  merely  from  -^rarity 
that  his  wife  was  received  among  the  other  ladies  01  Mud- me 
Joseph  Buonaparte's  household. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

Paris,  August^    1805'. 

MY  LORD, 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  ties  of  consanguinity,  honour, 
duty,  interest,  and  gratitude,  which  bound  the  Spanish  Bourbons 
to  the  cause  of  the  Bourbons  of  France,  no  monarch  has  rendered 
more  service  to  the  cause  of  rebellion,  and  done  more  harm  to 
the  cause  of  royalty,  than  the  king  of  Spain. 

But  here  again  you  must  understand  me ;  when  I  speak  of 
Princes,  whose  talents  are  known  not  to  be  brilliant,  whose  intel- 
lects are  known  to  be  feeble,  and  whose  good  intentions  are  ren- 
dered null,  by  a  want  of  firmness  of  character,  or  consistency  of 
conduct ;  while  I  deplore  their  weakness,  and  the  consequent 
misfortune  of  their  contemporaries,  I  lay  all  the  blame  on  their 
wicked  or  ignorant  counsellors  ;  because,  if  no  ministers  were 
fools  or  traitors,  no  Sovereigns  would  tremble  on  their  thrones, 
and  no  subjects  dare  to  shake  their  foundation.  Had  Providence 
blessed  Charles  IV.  of  Spain  with  tnat  judgment  in  selecting  his 
ministers,  and  that  constancy  in  persevering  in  his  choice,  as 
your  George  III ;  had  the  helm  of  Spain  been  in  the  firm  anil 
able  hp.nds  of  a  Grenville.  a  WinUham?  and  a  Pitt,  the  cabinet  of 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  lOf 

Madrid  would  never  have  been  oppressed  by  the  yoke  of  the  ca- 
binet of  St.  Cloud,  nor  paid  a  heavy  tribute  for  its  bondage,  de- 
grading as  well  as  ruinous. 

"  This  is  the  age  of  upstarts,"  said  Talleyrand  to  his  cousin 
Prince  de  Chalais,  who  reproached  him  for  an  unbecoming  ser- 
vility to  low  and  vile  personages  ;  "  and  I  prefer  bowing  to  them, 
to  being  trampled  upon  and  crushed  by  them."  Indeed,  as  far 
as  I  remember,  no  where  in  history  are  hitherto  recorded  so 
many  low  persons,  who,  from  obscurity  and  meanness,  have 
suddenly  and  at  once,  attained  rank  and  notoriety.  Where  do 
v/e  read  of  such  a  numerous  crew  of  upstart  emperors,  kings, 
grand  pensionaries,  directors,  imperial  highnesses,  princes,  field- 
marshals,  generals,  senators,  ministers,  governors,  cardinals,  £cc. 
as  we  now  witness  figuring  upon  the  theatre  ol  Europe,  and  who 
chiefly  decide  on  the  destiny  of  nations  !  Among  these,  several 
are  certainly  to  be  found,  whose  superior  parts  have  made  them 
worthy  to  pierce  the  crowd,  and  to  shake  off  their  native  mud  ; 
but  others  again,  and  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  these  now  Ac- 
mines,  owe  their  present  elevation  to  shameless  intrigues  or  atro- 
cious crimes. 

The  prime  minister,  or  rather  the  viceroy  of  Spain,  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  belongs  to  the  latter  class.  From  a  man  in  the  ranks 
of  the  guards,  he  was  promoted  to  a  general  in  chief,  and  from  a 
harp-player  in  anti-chambers,  to  a  president  of  the  councils  of  a 
Prince,  and  that  within  the  short  period  of  six  years.  Such  a 
fortune  is  not  common  ;  but  to  be  absolutely  without  capacity 
as  well  as  virtue,  genius  as  well  as  good^breeding,  and  neverthe- 
less to  continue  in  an  elevation  so  little  merited,  and  in  a  place 
formerly  so  subject  to  changes,  and  so  unstable,  is  a  fortune  that 
no  upstart  ever  before  experienced  in  Spain. 

An  intrigue  of  his  eider  brother  with  the  present  Queen,  then 
Princess  of  Asturia,  which  was  discovered  by  the  late  King,  in- 
troduced him  first  at  court  as  a  harp-player  ;  and  when  his  bro-* 
ther  was  exiled,  he  was  entrusted  with  the  correspondence  of  the 
Princess  with  her  gallant.  After  she  had  ascended  the  throne, 
he  thought  it  more  profitable  to  be  the  lover  than  the  messen- 
ger, and  contrived,  therefore,  to  supplant  his  brother  in  the  royal 
favour.  Promotions  and  riches  were  consequently  heaped  upon 
him  ;  and,  what  is  surprising,  the  more  undisguised  the  par* 


108  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tiality  of  the  Queen  was,  the  greater  the  attachment  of  the  King 
displayed  itself ;  aud  it  has  ever  since  been  an  emulation  between 
the  royal  couple,  who  should  the  most  forget  and  vilify  birth  and 
supremacy,  by  associating  this  man  not  only  in  the  courtly  plea- 
sures, but  in  the  functions  of  sovereignty.     Had  he  been  gifted 
with  a  sound  understanding,  or  possessed  any  share  of  delicacy, 
generosity,  or  discretion,  he  would,  while  he  profited  by  their 
imprudent  condescension,  have  prevented  them  from  exposing 
their  weaknesses  and  frailties  to  a  discussion  and  ridicule  among 
courtiers,  and  from  becoming  objects  of  humiliation  and  scandal 
among  the  people.     He  would  have  warned  them  of  the  danger, 
•which  at  all  times  attends  the  publicity  of  the  foibles  and  vices  of 
Princes,  but  particularly  in  the  present  times  of  trouble  and  in- 
novations.    He   would  have  told  them  :  Make  me  great    and 
wealthy,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  your  own  grandeur,  or  of  the 
loyalty  of  your  people.     Do  not  treat  a   humble   subject  as  an 
equal ;  nor  suffer  your  Majesties,  whom  Providence  destined  to 
govern  a  high  spirited  naion,  to  be  openly  ruled  by  one  born  to 
obey.     I  am  too  dutiful  not  to  lay  aside  my  private  vanity,  when 
the  happiness  of  my  King,  and  the  tranquillity  of  my  fellow-sub- 
jects are  at  stake.     I  am  already  too  high.     In  descending  a  lit- 
tle,  I  shall  not  only  rise  in  the  eyes  of  my  contemporaries,  but 
in  the  opinion  of  posterity.     Every  step  I  am  advancing  under- 
mines your  throne.     In  retreating  a  little,  if  I  do  not  strengthen, 
I  can  never  injure  it.   But  I  beg  your  pardon  for  this  Digression, 
and  for  putting  the  language  of  dignified  reason  into  the  mouth 
of  a  man  as  corrupt  as  he  is  imbecile. 

Do  not  suppose  because  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  no  friend  of  my 
nation,  that  I  am  his  enemy.  No  !  had  he  shown  himself 'a  true 
patriot,  a  friend  of  his  own  country,  and  of  his  too  liberal  Prince, 
or  even  of  monarchy  in  general,  or  of  any  body  else  but  himself, 
although  I  might  have  disapproved  of  his  policy,  if  he  lias  any,  I 
would  never  have  lashed  the  individual  for  the  acts  of  the  minis- 
ter. But  you  must  have  observed  with  me,  that  never,  before  his 
administration,  was  the  cabinet  of  Madrid  worse  conducted  at 
home,  or  more  despised  abroad ;  the  Spanish  monarch  more 
humbled,  or  Spanish  subjects  more  wretched  ;  the  Spanish  power 
more  dishonoured,  or  the  Spanish  resources  worse  employed. 
Never  before  the  treaty  with  France  of  1796,  concluded  by  this 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  K>9 

•viseacre  (which  made  him  a  Prince  of  Peace,  and  our  govern- 
ment the  sovereign  of  Spain)  was  the  Spanish  monarchy  reduced 
to  such  a  lamentable  dilemma,  as  to  be  forced  into  an  expensive 
v/ar  without  a  cause,  and  into  a  disgraceful  peace,  not  only  unpro- 
fitable, but  absolutely  disadvantageous.  Never  before  were  Us 
treasures  distributed  among  its  oppressors,  to  support  their  tyran- 
ny, nor  its  military  and  naval  forces  employed  to  fight  the  bat- 
tles of  rebellion.  The  loyal  subjects  of  Spain  have  only  one  hope 
left.  The  delicate  state  of  his  present  Majesty's  health  does  not 
promise  a  much  longer  continuance  of  his  reign  ;  and  the  Prince 
of  Asturia  is  too  well  informed,  to  endure  the  guidance  of  the 
most  ignorant  minister  that  ever  was  admitted  into  the  cabinet 
and  confidence  of  a  sovereign.  It  is  more  than  probable,  that 
und^r.  a  new  reign  the  misfortunes  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  will 
Inspire  as  much  compassion,  as  his  rapid  advancement  has  ex- 
cited astonishment  and  indignation. 

A  cabinet  thus  badly  directed,  cannot  be  expected  to  have  re- 
presentatives abroad,  either  of  abilities  or  patriotism.  The  Ad- 
miral and  G  eneral,  Gravina,  who  but  lately  left  this  capital,  as  an 
ambassador  from  the  Court  of  Spain,  to  assume  the  command  of 
a  Spanish  fleet,  is  more  valiant  than  wise,  and  more  an  enemy 
of  your  country  than  a  friend  of  his  own.  He  is  a  profound  ad- 
mirer of  Buonaparte's  -virtues  and  successes  ;  and  was,  during 
his  residence,  one  of  the  most  ostentatiously  awkward  courtiers  of 
Napoleone  the  First.  It  is  said,  that  he  has  the  modesty  and 
loyalty  t©  wish  to  become  a  Spanish  Buonaparte ;  and  that  he 
promises  to  restore,  by  his  genius  and  exploits,  the  lost  lustre  of 
the  Spanish  monarchy.  When  this  was  reported  to  Talleyrand, 
he  smiled  with  contempt ;  but  when  it  was  told  to  Buonaparte, 
he  stamped  with  rage  at  the  impudence  of  the  Spaniard,  in  dar- 
ing to  associate  his  name  of  acquired  and  established  greatness, 
with  his  own  impertinent  schemes  of  absurdities  and  impossibi- 
lities. 

In  the  summer  of  1793,  Gravina  commanded  a  division  of  the 
Spanish  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean,  of  which  Admiral  Langara 
was  the  commander-in-chief.  At  the  capitulation  of  Toulon, 
after  the  combined  English  and  Spanish  forces  had  taken  pos- 
session of  it,  when  Rear- Admiral  Goodallwas  declared  governor, 
Gravina  was  made  the  commandant  of  the  troops.  At  the  head 

i, 


110  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

of  these,  he  often  fought  bravely  in  different  sorties,  and  on  the 
first  of  October  was  wounded  at  the  recapture  of  Fort  Pharon. 
He  complains  still  of  having  suffered  insults  or  neglects  from 
the  English  ;  and  even  of  having  been  exposed  unnecessarily  to 
the  fire  and  sword  of  the  enemy?  merely  because  he  was  a  pa- 
triot, as  well  as  an  envied  or  suspected  ally.  His  inveteracy 
against  your  country  takes  its  date,  no  doubt,  from  the  siege  of 
Toulon,  or  perhaps  from  its  evacuation. 

When  in  May,  1794,  our  troops  were  advancing  towards  Co- 
Uoures,  he  was  sent  with  a  squadron  to  bring  it  succours  ;  but  he 
arrived  too  late,  and  could  not  save  that  important  place.  He 
was  not  more  successful  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  of 
1795,  at  Rosa,  where  he  had  only  time  to  carry  away  the  artille- 
ry, before  the  enemy  entered  In  August  that  year,  during  the 
absence  of  Admiral  Massaredo,  he  assumed,  adinterim,  the  com- 
mand of  the  Spanish  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean,  but  in  the  De- 
cember following  he  was  disgraced,  arrested,  and  shut  up  as  a 
state  prisoner. 

During  the  embassy  of  Lucien  Buonaparte  to  the  Court  of 
Madrid,  in  the  autumn  of  1 800,  Gravina  was,  by  his  influence, 
restored  to  favour,  and,  after  the  death  of  the  late  Spanish  am- 
bassador to  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud,  Chevalier  d'Azzara,  by  the 
special  desire  of  Napoleone,  was  nominated  both  his  successor, 
and  a  representative  of  the  King  of  Etruria.  Among  the  mem- 
bers of  our  diplomatic  corps,  he  was  considered  somewhat  of  a 
Spanish  gasconacler  and  a  bully.  He  more  frequently  boasted 
of  his  wounds  and  battles,  than  of  his  negotiations  or  confer- 
ences, though  he  pretended,  indeed,  to  shine  as  much  in  the  ca- 
binet as  in  the  field. 

In  his  suite  were  two  Spanish  women,  one  about  forty,  and 
the  other  about  twenty  years  of  age  ;  nobody  knew  what  to  make 
of  them,  as  they  were  neither  treated  as  wives,  mistresses,  nor 
servants,  and  they  avowed  themselves  to  be  no  relations.  After 
a  residence  here  of  some  weeks,  he  was,  by  superior  orders,  way- 
laid one  night  at  the  opera,  by  a  young  and  a  beautiful  dancing 
girl,  of  the  name  of  Barrois,  who  engaged  him  to  take  her  into 
keeping.  He  hesitated,  indeed,  for  some  time  ;  at  last,  however, 
love  got  the  better  of  his  scruples,  and  he  furnished  for  her  an 
elegant  apartment  on  the  new  Boulevard.  On  the  clay  he  car- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  ill 

*v-iiid  her  there,  he  was  accompanied  by  the  chaplain  of  the  Spa- 
nish  Legation ;  and  told  her  that,  previous  to  any  further  inti- 
macy, sue   must  he  married  to  him,  as  his  religious  principles 
did  rot  permit  him  to  cohabit  with  a  woman,  who  was  not  his 
wife  ;  at  the  same  time  he  laid  before  her  an  agreement  to  sign, 
by  which  she  bound  herself  never  to  claim  him  as  a  husband  be- 
fore her  turn,  that  is  to  say,  until  sixteen  other  women,  to  whom 
he  had  been  previously  married,  were  dead.     She  made  no  op* 
position  either  to  the  marriage,  or  to  the  conditions  annexed  to  it. 
This  girl  had  a  sweetheart  of  the  name  of  Valere,  an  actor   al 
one  of  the  little  theatres  on  the  Boulevards,  to  whom  she  com- 
municated her  adventure :  he  advised  her  to  be  scrupulous  in  her 
turn,  and  to  ask  a  copy  o£  the  agreement.     After  some  difficul- 
ty, this  was  obtained.     In  it  no  mention  was  made  of  her  main- 
tenance, nor  in  what  manner  her  children  were  to  be  regarded, 
should  she  have  any  :  Valere  had,  therefore,  another  agreemci>, 
drawn  up,  iu  which  all  these  points  were  arranged  according  to 
hi*  own  interested  views.    Gravina  refused  to  subscribe  to  what  he 
plainly  perceived  were  only  extortions ;  and  the  girl,  in  her  turn 
not  only  declined  any  farther  connexion  with  him,  but  threaten- 
ed to  publish  the  act  of  polygamy.     Before  they  had  done  dis- 
cussing this  subject,  the  door  was  suddenly  opened,  and  the  two 
Spanish  ladies  presented  themselves.     After  severely  upbraid- 
ing Gravina,  who  was  struck  mute  by  surprise,  they  announced 
to  the  girl,  that  whatever  promise  or  contract  of  marriage  she 
had  obtained  from  him  was  of  no  value,  as- before  they  came  with 
him  to  France,  he  had  bound  himself,  before  a  public  notary  at 
Madrid,  not  to  form  any  new  connexions,  nor  to  marry  any  other 
woman  without  their  written  consent.     One  of  these  ladies  de- 
clared that  she  had  been  married   to  Gravina  twenty -two  years, 
and  was   his   oldest  wife  but  one  ;  the  other  said  that  she  had 
been  married  to  him  six  years.     They  insisted  upon  his  follow- 
ing them,  which  he  did,  alter  putting  a  purse  of  gold  into  Bar- 
rois'  hand. 

When  Valere  heard  from  his  mistress  this  occurrence,  he  ad- 
vised her  to  make  the  most  money  she  could  of  the  Spaniard^ 
curious  scrujiles.  A  letter  therefore  was  written  to  him,  de- 
manding one  hundred  thousand  livres,  4000/.  as  the  price  of  se- 
crecy, and  withholding  the  particulars  of  this  business  from  the 


M2  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

knowledge  of  the  tribunals  and  the  police  ;  an  answer  was  re- 
quired within  twenty-four  hours.  The  same  night  Gravina  of- 
fered one  thousand  Louis,  which  were  accepted,  and  the  papers 
returned  ;  but  the  next  day  Valere  went  to  his  hotel,  rue  de  Pro- 
vence, where  he  presented  himself  as  the  brother  of  Barrois. 
He  stated  that  he  still  possessed  authenticated  copies  of  the  pa- 
pers returned,  and  that  he  must  have  either  the  full  sum  first 
asked  by  his  sister,  or  an  annuity  ef  twelve  thousand  livres  set- 
tled upon  her.  Instead  of  an  answer,  Gravina  ordered  him  to 
be  turned  out  of  the  house.  An  attorney  then  waited  on  his  Ex- 
cellency, on  the  part  of  the  brother  and  the  sister,  and  repeated 
their  threats  and  their  demands,  adding,  that  he  would  write  a 
memorial  both  to  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  and  to  the  King 
of  Spain,  were  justice  refused  to  his  principals  any  longer. 

Gravinu  was  well  aware,  that  this  affair,  though  more  laugha- 
ble than  criminal,  would  hurt  both  his  character  and  credit,  if  it 
were  known  in  France  ;  he  therefore  consented  to  pay  seventy- 
six  thousand  livres  more,  upon  a  formal  renunciation  by  the  par- 
ty of  all  future  claims.  Not  having  money  sufficient  by  him,  he 
went  to  borrow  it  from  a  banker,  whose  clerk  was  one  of  Talley- 
rand's secret  agents.  Our  minister,  therefore,  ordered  every 
step  of  Gravina  to  be  watched ;  but  he  soon  discovered,  that  in- 
stead of  wanting  this  money  for  a  political  intrigue,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  extricate  him  out  of  an  amorous  scrape.  Hearing,  how- 
ever, in  what  a  scandalous  manner  the  ambassador  had  been  du- 
ped and  imposed  upon,  he  reported  it  to  Buonaparte,  who  gave 
Fouche  orders  to  have  both  Valere,  Barrois,  and  the  attorney 
immediately  transported  to  Cayenne,  and  to  restore  Gravina  his 
money.  The  former  part  of  this  order,  the  minister  of  the  po- 
lice executed  so  much  the  more  willingly,  as  it  was  according  to 
his  plan  that  Barrois  had  pitched  upon  Gravina  for  a  lover.  She 
had  been  intended  by  him  for  a  spy  on  his  Excellency ;  but  had 
deceived  him  by  her  reports ;  a  crime,  for  which  transportation 
\vas  an  usual  punishment. 

Notwithstanding  the  care  of  our  government  to  conceal  and 
bury  this  affair  in  oblivion,  it  furnished  matter  both  for  conver- 
sation in  our  fashionable  circles,  and  subjects  for  our  caricaturists. 
But  these  artists  were  soon  seized  by  the  police,  who  found  it 
more  easy  to  chastise  genius  than  to  silence  tongues.  The  de 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  113 

duration  of  war  by  Spain  against  your  country,  was  a  lucky  op- 
portunity for  Gravina  to  quit  with  honour  a  Court,  where  he  was 
an  object  of  ridicule,  to  assume  the  command  of  a  fleet,  which 
might  one  day  make  him  an  object  of  terror.  When  he  took 
leave  of  Buonaparte,  he  was  told  to  return  to  France  victorious, 
or  never  to  return  any  more  ;  and  Talleyrand  warned  him  as  a 
friend,  "  whenever  he  returned  to  his  post  in  France,  to  leave  Ins 
muniage  mania  behind  him  in  Spain.  Here,"  said  he,  "  you 
may,  without  ridicule,  intrigue  with  a  hundred  women,  but'  you 
run  a  great  risk  only  by  marrying  one." 

I  have  been  in  company  with  Gravina,  and  after  what  I  heard 
him  say,,  so  far  from  judging  him  superstitious,  I  thought  him 
really  impious.  But  infidelity  and  bigotry  are  frequently  next 
door  neighbours. 


LETTER    XXVIII. 

Paris,  dugu&t,  1805>- 

MY    LORD, 

/  IT  cannot  have  escaped  the  observation  of 'the  most  superficial 
traveller  of  rank,  that  at  the  Court  of  St.' Cloud  want  of  morals  is 
not  atoned  for  by  good  breeding  or  good  manners.  The  hideous- 
ness  of  vice,  the  pretensions  of  ambition,  the  vanity  of  rank,  the 
pride  of  favour,  and  the  shame  of  venality,  do  not  wear  here  that 
delicate  veil,  that  gloss  of  virtue,  which,  in  other  courts,  lessens'' 
the  deformity  of  corruption,  and  the  scandal  of  depravity.  Du- 
plicity and  hypocrisy  are  here  very  common  indeed,  more  so  thaii 
dissimulation  any  where  else  ;  but  bare-faced  knaves  and  impos- 
tors must  always  make  indifferent  courtiers.  Here  the  minis- 
ter tells  youj  I  must  have  such  a  sum  for  a  place  ;  and  the  cham- 
berlain tells  you,  count  down  so  much  for  my  protection.  The 
princess  requires  a  necklace  of  such  value,  for  interesting  herself 
for  your  advancement  ;  and  the  lady  in  waiting  demands  a 
diamond  of  such  worth  on  the  day  of  your  promotion.  This  ta- 
riff of  favours  and  of  infamy  descends  ad  infinitum*  The  secre- 
tary for  signing,  and  the  clerk  for  writing  your  commissions  ; 
the  cashier  for  delivering  it,  and  the  messenger  for  informing 
you  of  it,  have  all  their  fixed  prices.  Have  you  a  lawsuit,  the: 
judge  announces  lo  you,,  that  so  much  has  been  offered  by 

L  .2- 


ii4  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

opponent,  and  so  much  is  expected  from  you,  if  you  desire  t<* 
win  your  cause.  When  you  are  the  defendant  against  the 
crown,  the  attorney  or  solicitor-general  lets  you  know,  that  such 
a  douceur  is  requisite  to  procure  such  an  issue.  Even  in  crimi- 
nal proceedings,  not  only  honour,  but  life,  may  be  saved  by  pecu- 
^  niary  sacrifices. 

A  man  of  the  name  of  Martin,  by  profession  a  stockjobber,  kill- 
ed in  1803,  his  own  wife;  and  for  twelve  thousand  livres,  5001. 
he  was  acquitted,  and  recovered  his  liberty.  In  November,  last 
year,  in  a  quarrel  with  his  own  brother,  he  stabbed  him  through 
the  heart,  and  for  another  sum  of  twelve  thousand  livres,  he  was 
acquitted  and  released  before  last  Christmas.  This  wretch  is 
now  in  prison  again,  on  suspicion  of  having  poisoned  his  own 
daughter,  with  whom  he  had  an  incestuous  intercourse,  and  he 
boasts  publicly  of  the  certainty  of  soon  being  liberated. 

Another  person,  Louis  de  Saurac,  the  younger  son  of  Baron 
de  Saurac,  who,  together  with  his  eldest  son,  had  emigrated, 
forged  a  will  in  the  name  of  his  parent,  whom  he  pretended  to 
be  dead,  which  left  him  the  sole  heir  of  all  the  disposable  pro- 
perty, to  the  exclusion  of  two  sisters.  After  the  nation  had  shar- 
ed its  part,  as  heir  of  all  emigrants,  Louis  took  possession  cf  the 
remainder.  In  1 802,  both  his  father  and  brother  accepted  of  the 
general  amnesty,  and  returned  to  France.  To  their  great  sur- 
prise, they  heard  that  this  Louis  had,  by  his  ill-treatment,  forced 
his  sisters  into  servitude,  refusing  them  even  the  common  ne- 
cessaries of  life.  After  -upbraiding  him  for  his  want  of  duty,  the 
father  desired,  according  to  the  law,  the  restitution  of  the  unsold 
part  of  his  estates.  On  the  day  fixed  for  settling  the  accounts, 
and  entering  into  his.  right,  Baron  de  Saurac  was  arrested  as  a 
conspirator,  and  imprisoned  in  the  temple.  He  had  been  de- 
nounced as  having  served  in  the  army  of  Conde,  and  as  being  a 
secret  agent  of  Louis  XVIII.  To  disprove  the  first  part  of  the 
charge,  he  produced  certificates  from  America,  where  he  had 
passed  the  time  of  his  emigration,  and  even  uponMie  rack  he  de- 
nied the  latter.  During  his  arrest,  the  eldest  son  discovered,  that 
Louis  hadbecome  the  ownerof  their  possessionsby  meansof  the  will 
he  had  forged  in  the  name  of  his  father ;  and  that  it  was  he  who  had 
been  unnatural  enough  to  denounce  the  author  of  his  days.  With 
the  wreck  of  their  fortune  ia  St.  Domingo,  he  prQiwed  his  father's- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  115 

•release  ;  who,  being  acquainted  with  the  perversity  of  his  young 
er  son,  addressed  himself  to  the  department,  to  be  reinstated  in 
his  property.  This  was  opposed  by  Louis ;  who  defended  his 
title  to  the  estate  by  the  revolutionary  maxim,  which  had  passed 
into  a  law,  enacting,  that  all  emigrants  should  be  considered  as 
politically  dead.  Hitherto  Baron  de  Saurac  hud,  from  affection, 
declined  to  mention  the  forged  will  ;  but  shocked  by  his  son's 
obduracy,  and  being  reduced  to  distress,  his  counsellor  produced 
this  document,  which  not  only  went  to  deprive  Louis  of  his  pro- 
perly, but  exposed  him  to  a  criminal  prosecution. 

This  unnatural  son,  who  is  not  yet  twenty-five,  had  imbibed 
all  the  revolutionary  morals  of  his  contemporaries,  and  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  moral  characters  of  his  revolutionary  coun- 
trymen. He  addressed  himself,  therefore,  to  Merlin  of  Douai, 
Buonaparte's  Imperial  attorney-general, -and  Gomir.mander  of  his 
Legion  of  Honour  ;  who,  for  a  bi  ibe  of  fifty  thousand  livres,  2, 100/. 
obtained  for  him,  after  he  had  been  defeated  in  every  other  court,  a 
judgment  in  his  favour,  in  the  tribunal  of  cassation  ;  under  the 
sophistical  conclusion,  that  all  emigrants  being,  according  to  law, 
considered  as  politically  dead,  a  will  in  the  name  of  any  one  of 
them  was  merely  a  pious  fraud,  to  preserve  the  property  in  the 
family. 

This  Merlin  is  the  son  of  a  labourer  of  Anchin,  and  was  a 
servant  of  the  abbey  of  the  same  name.  One  of  the  monks  ob- 
serving in  him  some  application,  charitably  sent  him  to  be  educat- 
ed at  Douai,  after  having  bestowed  on  him  some  previous  edu- 
cation. Not  satisfied  with  this  generous  act,  he  engaged  the 
other  monks,  as  well  as  the  chapter  of  Gambray,  to  subscribe  for 
his  expenses  of  admission,  as  an  attorney,  by  the  parliament  of 
Douai,  in  which  situation  the  revolution  found  him.  By  his  dis- 
simulation and  assumed  modesty,  he  continued  to  dupe  his  bene- 
factors ;  who  by  their  influence  obtained  for  him  the  nomination 
us  a  representative  of  the  people  to  our  first  National  Assembly. 
They  soon,  however,  had  reason  to  repent  of  their  generosity, 
He  joined  the  Orleans  faction,  and  became  one  of  the  most  per- 
severing, violent,  and  cruel  persecutors  of  the  privileged  classes, 
particularly  of  the  clergy,  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  every- 
thing. In  1792  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  National  Con- 
vention} where  he  voted  for  the  death  of  his  King.  It  was  he 


t 

i  1 6  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

who  proposed  a  law  (justly  called  by  Pnidhomme  the  produc- 
tion of  the  deliberate  homicide  Merlin)  against  *uafiectcd  persons, 
which  was  decreed  on  the  17th  September,  1793,  and  caused  the 
imprisonment  or  proscription  of  two  hundred  thousand  families. 
This  decree  procured  him  the  appellation  of  J\Ierlin  Suspect^ 
and  of  Merlin  Potence.  In  1795  he  was  first  appointed  a  minis- 
ter of  police,  and  soon  afterwards  a  minister  of  justice,  After 
the  revolution  in  favour  of  Jacobins,  of  the  4th  September,  1797, 
he  was  made  a  Director  ;  a  place  which  he  was  obliged  by  the 
same  Jacobins  to  resign  in  June  1799.  Buonaparte  expressed  at 
first, the  most  sovereign  contempt  for  this  Merlin  ;  but  on  ac- 
count of  one  of  his  sons,  who  was  his  aid-de-camp,  he  was  ap- 
pointed by  him,  when  First  Consul,  his  attorney -general. 

As  nothing  paints  better  the  true  features  of  a  government 
than  the  morality  or  -vices  of  its  functionaries,  I  will  finish  this 
man's  portrait  with  the  following  characteristic  touches. 

Merlin  de  Douai  has  been  successively  th*e  counsel  of  the  late 
Duke  of  Orleans,  the  friend  of  Danton,  of  Chabot,  and  of  Hebert, 
the  admirer  of  Marat,  and  the  servant  of  Robespierre,  An  ac- 
complice of  Rewbel,  Barras,  and  la  Rcveiiiiere,  an  author  of  the 
law  of  suspected  persons,  an  advocate  of  the  Stptembiisers,  and 
ardent  apostle  of  the  St.  Guillotine.  Cunning  as  a  fox  and  fero- 
cious as  a  tiger,  he  has  outlived  all  the  factions  with  which  he 
has  been  connected.  It  has  been  his  policy  to  keep  in  continual 
fermentation,  rivalships,  jealousies,  inquietudes,  revenge,  and  all 
other  odious  passions  ;  establishing  by  such  means  his  influence 
on  the  terror  of  some,  the  ambition  ofothers,  and  the  credulity  of 
them  all.  Had  I,  when  Merlin  proposed  his  law  concerning 
suspected  persons,  in  the  name  of  liberty  and  equality,  been  free 
and  his  equal,  I  should  have  said  to  him  :  "  Monster,  this  your 
atrocious  law  is  your  sentence  of  death  >  it  has  brought  thousands 
of  innocent  persons  to  an  untimely  end  ;  you  shall  die  by  my 
hands  as  a  victim,  if  the  tribunals  do  not  condemn  you  to  the 
scaffold  as  an  executioner,  or  as  a  criminal." 

Merlin  has  bought  national  property  to  the  amount  of  fifteen 
millions  of  Hvres,  625,000/.  and  he  is  supposed  to  possess  money 
nearly  to  the  same  amount,  in  your  or  our  funds.  For  a.mar^ 
born  a  beggar  and  educated  by  chanty,  this  fortune,  together 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  U7 

with  the  liberal  salaries  he  enjoys,  might  seem  sufficient,  -without 
selling  justice,  protecting  guilt,  and  oppressing  or  persecuting  in- 
nocence. 


LETTER  XXIX. 

Paris,   August^   1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  household  troops  of  Napoleone  the  First  are  by  thou- 
sands more  numerous  than  those  even  of  Louis  XIV.  were.-— 
Grenadiers  on  foot  and  on  horseback ;  riflemen  on  foot  and  on 
horseback ;  heavy  and  light  artillery  ;  dragoons  and  hussars  ; 
mamelukes  and  sailors  ;  artificers  and  pontooners  ;  gens-d'armes 
and  gens-d'armes  d'Elite ;  Velites  and  veterans  ;  with  Italian, 
grenadiers,  riflemen,  dragoons,  Etc.  Sec.  compose  all  together  a 
no  inconsiderable  army. 

Though  it  frequently  happens,  that  the  pay  of  the  other  troops 
is  in  arrear,  those  appertaining  to  Buonaparte's  household  are  as 
regularly  paid  as  his  senators,  counsellors  of  state,  and  the  public 
functionaries.  All  the  men  are  picked,  and  all  the  officers,  as 
much  as  possible,  of  birth,  or  at  least  of  education.  In  the  midst 
of  this  voluptuous  and  seductive  capital,  they  are  kept  very  strict, 
and  the  least  negligence  or  infraction  of  military  discipline  is 
more  severely  punished  than  if  committed  in  garrison,  or  in  an 
encampment.  They  are  both  better  clothed,  accoutred,  and  paid, 
than  the  troops  of  the  line,  and  have  every  where  the  precedency 
of  them.  All  the  officers,  and  many  of  the  soldiers  are  mem- 
bers of  Buonaparte's  Legion  of  Honour ;  and  carry  arms  of 
honour,  distributed  to  them  by  Imperial  favour,  or  for  military 
exploits.  None  of  them  are  quartered  upon  the  citizens  ;  each 
corps  has  Us  own  spacious  barracks,  hospitals,  drilling-ground, 
riding  or  fencing-houses,  gardens,  bathing-houses,  billiard-table, 
and  even  libraries.  A  chapel  has  lately  been  constructed  near 
each  barrack,  and  almoners  are  already  appointed.  In  the  mean 
time,  they  attend  regularly  at  mass,  either  in  the  Imperial  chapel 
or  in  the  parish  churches.  Buonaparte  discourages  much  all 
marriages  among  the  military  in  general,  but  particularly  among 
those  of  his  household  troops.  That  they  may  not,  however,  be 
entirely  deprived  of  the  society  of  women;  he  allows  five  to.  each 


118  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

company,  with  the  same  salaries  as  the  men,  under  the  name  of- 
washerwomen. 

With  a  vain  and  fickle  people,  fond  of  shows  and  innovation's, 
nothing,  in  a  military  despotism,  has  a  greater  political  utility, 
gives  greater  satisfaction,  and  leaves  behind  a  more  useful  terror 
and  awe,  than  Buonaparte's  grand  military  reviews.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  his  consulate,  they  regularly  occurred  three  times  in 
the  month  ;  after  his  victory  of  Marengo,  they  were  reduced  to 
once  in  a  fortnight  ;  and,  since  he  has  been  proclaimed  Em- 
peror, to  once  only  in  the  month.  This  ostentatious  exhibition 
of  usurped  power,  is  always  closed  with  a  diplomatic  review  of 
the  representatives  of  lawful  Princes  ;  who  introduce,  on  those  oc- 
casions, their  fellow-subjects  to  another  subject,  who  successfully 
has  seized,  and  continues  to  usurp,  the  authority  of  his  own 
sovereign.  What  an  example  for  ambition  !  what  a  lesson  to 
treachery ! 

Besides  the  household  troops,  this  capital  and  its  vicinity  have, 
for  these  three  years  past,  never  contained  less  than  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  thousand  men  of  the  regiments  of  the  line  ;  belonging 
to  what  is  called  the  first  military  division  of  the  army  of  the  in- 
terior. These  troops  are  selected  from  among  the  brigades  that 
served  under  Buonaparte  in  Italy  and  Egypt  with  the  greatest 
eclat,  and  constitute  a  kind  of  depot  for  recruiting  his  household 
with  tried  and  trusty  men.  They  are  also  regularly  paid,  and  ge- 
nerally better  accoutred,  than  their  comrades  encamped  on-  the 
coast,  or  quartered  in  Italy  or  Holland. 

But  a  standing  army,  upon  which  all  revolutionary  rulers  can 
depend,  and  that  will  always  continue  their  faithful  support,  unique 
in  its  sort  and  composition,  exists  in  the  bosom  as  well  as  in  the  ' 
extremities  of  this  country.  I  mean  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  invalids,  mostly  young  men  under  thirty,  forced  by 
conscription  against  their  will  into  the  field  ;  quartered  and  taken 
care  of  by  our  government,  and  all  possessed  with  the  absurd  pre- 
judice, that,  as  they  have  been  maimed  in  fighting  the  battles  of. 
rebellion,  the  restoration  of  legitimate  sovereignty  would  to  them 
be  an  epoch  of  destruction,  or  at  least  of  misery  and  want  ;  and 
this  prejudice  is  kept  alive  by  emissaries  employed  on  purpose 
to  mislead  them.  Of  these,  eight  thousand  are  lodged  and  pro- 
vided for  in  this  city ;  ten  thousand  at  Versailles  ;  and  the  re- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  119 

maincler  in  Piedmont,  Brabant,  and  in  the  conquered  depart- 
ments on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  ;  countries  where  the  inha- 
bitants are  discontented  and  disaffected,  and  require  therefore  to 
be  watched,  and  to  have  a  better  spirit  infused. 

Those  whose  wounds  permit  it,  are  also  employed  to  do  gar- 
rison duty,  in  fortified  places  not  exposed  to  an  attack  by  enemies, 
and  to  assist  in  the  different  arsenals  and  laboratories,  founderies, 
and  depots  of  military  or  naval  stores.  Others  are  attached  to 
the  police  offices,  and  some  as  gens-d'armes  to  arrest  suspected 
or  guilty  individuals  ;  or  as  garnissaires,  to  enforce  the  payment 
of  contributions  from  the  unwilling  or  distressed.  "When  the 
period  for  the  payment  of  taxes  is  expired,  two  of  these  garnis- 
saires  present  themselves  at  the  house  of  the  person  in  arrears, 
with  a  billet  signed  by  the  director  of  the  corstriUuions,  and 
countersigned  by  the  police  commissary.  If  the  money  is  not 
immediately  paid,  with  half  a  crown  to  each  of  them  besides, 
they  remain  quartered  in  the  house,  where  they  are  to  be  board- 
ed, and  to  receive  half-a-crown  a  day  each,  until  an  order  from 
those  who  sent  them  informs  them,  that  what  was  due  to  the 
state  has  been  acquitted.  After  their  entrance  into  a  house,  and 
during  their  stay,  no  furniture  or  effects  whatever  can  be  remov- 
ed or  disposed  of;  nor  can  the  master  or  mistress  go  out  oi 
doors  without  being  accompanied  by  one  of  them. 

In  the  houses  appropriated  to  our  invalids,  the  inmates  are. 
very  well  treated,  and  government  takes  great  care  to  make  them 
satisfied  with  their  lot.  The  officers  have  large  halls,  billiards, 
and  a  reading-room  to  meet  in  ;  and  the  common  men  are  admit- 
ted into  apartments  adjoining  libraries,  from  which  they  can 
borrow  what  books  they  contain,  and  read  them  at  leisure.  This 
is  certainly  a  very  good  and  even  humane  institution,  though 
these  libraries  chiefly  contain  military  histories  or  novels. 

As  to  the  morals  of  these  young  invalids,  they  may  be  well 
conceived  when  you  remember  the  morality  of  our  revolution  ; 
and  that  they,  without  any  religious  notions  or  restraints,  were 
not  only  permitted,  but  encouragid,  to  partake  oi  the  debauchery 
and  licentiousness  which  were  carried  to  such  an  extreme  in  cur 
armies  and  encampments.  In  an  age  when  the  passions  arc- 
strongest,  and  often  blind  reason,  and  silence  conscience,  they  have 
•not.  the  means  nor  the  permission  to  marry  ;  in  their  vicinity  it. 


120  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Is,  therefore,  more  difficult  to  discover  one  honest  woman,  or  a 
dutiful  wife,  than  hundreds  of  harlots  and  of  adulteresses.  Not- 
withstanding that  many  of  them  have  been  accused  before  the 
tribunals  of  seductions,  rape,  and  violence  against  the  sex,  not 
one  has  been  punished  for  what  the  morality  of  our  government 
consider  merely  as  bagatelles.  Even  in  cases  where  husbands, 
brothers,  and  lovers  have  been  killed  by  them,  while  defending 
or  avenging  the  honour  of  their  wives,  sisters,  and  mistresses;, 
our  tribunals  have  been  ordered  by  our  grand  judge,  according 
to  the  commands  of  the  Emperor,  not  to  proceed.  As  most  of 
them '  have  no  occupation,  the  vice  of  idleness  augments  the 
mass  of  their  corruption;  for  men  of  their  principles,  when  they 
have  nothing  to  do,  never  do  any  thing  good. 

I  do  not  know  if  my  country  women  feel  themselves  honoured 
by  or  obliged  to  Buonaparte,  for  leaving  their  virtue  and  honour 
unprotected,  except  by  their  own  prudence  and  strength  ;  but  of 
this  I  am  certain,  that  all  our  other  troops,  as  well  as  the  invalids, 
may  live  on  free  quarters  with  the  sex,  without  fearing  the  con- 
sequences, provided  they  keep  at  a  distance  from  the  females  of 
our  Imperial  family,  and  of  those  of  our  grand  officers  of  state 
and  principal  functionaries.  The  wives  and  the  daughters<of  the 
latter  have,  however,  sometimes  declined  the  advantage  of  these 
exclusive  privileges. 

A  horse  grenadier  of  Buonaparte's  Imperial  guard,  of  the  name 
of  RabaiS)  notorious  for  his  amours  and  debauchery,  was  accused 
before  the  Imperial  judge,  Thuriot,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
by  several  husbands  and  fathers,  of  having  seduced  the  affections 
of  their  wives  and  of  their  daughters.  As  usual,  Thuriot  refused 
to  listen  to  their  complaints  ;  at  the  same  time  insultingly  ad- 
vising them  to  retake  their  wives  and  children,  and  for  the  future 
to  be  more  careful  of  them.  Triumphing,  as  it  were,  in  his  in- 
justice, he  inconsiderately  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  his 
own  wife  ;  observing,  that  he  never  knew  so  many  charges  of  the 
same  sort  exhibited  against  one  man. 

Madame  Thuriot,  who  had  been  a  servant-maid  to  her  hus- 
band bs»fore  he  made  her  his  wife,  instead  of  being  disgusted  at 
the  recital,  secretly  determined  to  see  this  Rabais.  An  intrigue 
was  then  begun,  and  carried  on  for  four  months,  if  not  without 
tUscretion,  at  least  without  discovery  :  but  the  lady's  own  im- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  1%1 

prudence  at  last  betrayed  her;  or,  I  should  say,  rather,  her  jea- 
lousy. But  for  this,  she  might  still  have  been  admired  among 
our  modest  women,  and  Thuriot  among  fortunate  husbands  and 
happy  fathers ;  for  the  lady,  for  the  first  time  since  her  mar- 
riage, proved,  to  the  great  joy  and  pride  of  her  husband,  in  the 
family  way.  Suspecting,  however,  the  fidelity  of  her  paramour, 
she  watched  his  motion  so  closely,  that  she  discovered  an  in- 
trigue between  him  and  the  chaste  spouse  of  a  rich  banker  ;  but 
the  consequence  of  this  discovery  was  the  detection  of  her  own 
crime. 

On  the  discovery  of  his  disgrace,  Thuriot  obtained  an  audience 
of  Buonaparte,  in  which  he  exposed  his  misfortune,  and  demand- 
ed punishment  on  his  wife's  gallant.  As,  however,  he  also  ac- 
knowledged, that  his  own  indiscretion  was  an  indirect  cause  of 
their  connexion,  he  received  the  same  advice  which  he  had  given 
to  other  unfortunate  husbands  ;  to  retake,  and,  for  the  future, 
guard  better  his  dear  moiety. 

Thuriot  had,  however,  an  early  opportunity  of  wreaking  his 
vengeance  on  the  gallant  Rabais.  It  seems  his  prowess  had 
reached  the  ears  of  Madame  Bachiocchi,  the  eldest  sister  of  Buo- 
naparte. This  lady  has  a  children  mania,  which  is  very  trouble- 
some  to  her  husband,  disagreeable  to  her  relations,  and  injuri- 
ous to  herself.  She  never  beholds  any  lady,  particularly  any  of 
her  family,  in  the  way  which  women  wish  to  be  who  love  their 
lords,  but  she  is  absolutely  frantic.  Now  Thuriot's  worthy  friend, 
Fouche,  had  discovered,  by  his  spies,  that  Rabais  paid  frequent 
and  secret  visits  to  the  hotel  Bachiocchi,  and  that  Madame  Bachi- 
occhi was  the  object  of  these  visits.  Thuriot,  on  this  discovery, 
i7istantly  denounced  him  to  Buonaparte. 

Had  Rabais  ruined  all  the  women  of  this  capital,  he  would  not 
only  have  been  forgiven,  but  applauded  by  Napoleone,  and  his 
counsellors  and  courtiers  ;  but  to  dare  to  approach,  or  only  to 
cast  his  eyes  on  one  of  our  Imperial  Highnesses,  was  a  crime 
nothing  could  extenuate  or  avenge,  but  the  most  exemplary  pu- 
nishment. He  was  therefore  arrested,  sent  to  the  Temple,  and 
has  never  since  been  heard  of;  so  that  his  female  friends  are 
still  in  the  cruel  uncertainty,  whether  he  has  died  on  the  rack, 
•been  buried  alive  in  the  oubliettes,  or  is  wandering  an  exile  in  the 
1 '•  •-  of  Cayenne, 


122  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

In  examining  his  trunk,  among  the  curious  effects  discovered 
by  the  police,  were  eighteen  portraits,  and  one  hundred  billet- 
doux,  with  medallions,  rings,  bracelets,  tresses  of  hair,  Sec.  as 
numerous.  Two  of  the  portraits  occasioned  much  scandal,  and 
more  gossipping.  They  were  those  of  two  of  our  most  devout 
and  most  respectable,  court  ladies^  maids  of  honour  to  our  em- 
press, Madame  Ney  and  Madame  Lasnes  ;  who  never  miss  an 
opportunity  of  going  to. church,  who  have  received  the  private 
blessing  of  the  Pope,  and  who  regularly  confess  to  some  Bishop 
or  other,  once  in  a  fortnight.  Madame  Napoleone  cleared  them, 
however,  of  all  suspicion,  by  declaring  publicly  in  her  drawing- 
room,  that  these  portraits  had  come  into  ti.e  possession  of  Ra- 
bais  by  the  infidelity  of  their  maids;  who  had  confessed  their 
faults,  and,  therefore,  had  been  charitably  pardoned.  Whether 
the  opinions  of  Generals  Ney  and  Lasnes  coincide  with  Ma- 
dame Napoleone's  assertion,  is  uncertain ;  but  Lasnts  has  been 
often  heard  to  say,  that  from  the  instant  his  wife  began  to  con- 
fess, he  was  convinced  she  was  inclined  to  dishonour  him ;  so 
that  nothing  surprised  him. 

One  of  the  medallions  in  Rabais'  collection  contained,  on  one 
side,  the  portrait  of  Thuriot,  and,  on  the  other,  that  of  his  wiie  ; 
both  set  with  diamonds,  and  presented  to  her  by  him  on  their 
last  wedding-day.  For  the  supposed  theft  of  this  medallion,  two 
of  Thuriot's  servants  \\ere  in  prison,  when  the  arrest  oi  Kabais 
explained  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  lost.  Ti-ls  so  enrag- 
ed him,  that  he  beat  and  kicked  his  wife  so  hcuitiiy,  that  for 
some  time  even  her  lite  was  in  clanger,  and  Thuriot  lost  all  hopes 
of  being  a  father. 

Before  the  revolution,  Thuriot  had  been,  for  fraud  and  forgery, 
struck  off  the  roll  as  an  advocate,  and  therefore  joined  it  us  ^pa- 
triot. In  1791,  he  was  chosen  a  deputy  to  the  National  Assem- 
bly, and,  in  1792,  to  the  National  Convention.  He  always  show- 
ed himself  one  of  the  most  ungenerous  enemies  of  the  clergy, 
of  monarchy,  and  of  his  King  ;  for  whose  death  he  voted.  On 
the  25th  of  May,  1792,  in  declaiming  against  Christianity  and 
priesthood,  he  wished  them  both,  Jor  the  welfare  of  mankind,  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sea  ;  and,  on  the  13th  of  December,  the  same 
year,  he  declared,  in  the  Jacobin  Club,  that  if  the  National  Con- 
tention evinced  any  signs  of  clemency  towards  Louis  XVI.  he 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  123 

Woul-'l  go  him  self  to  the  Temple,  and  blow  out  the  b rains  of  this 
xuiibitup.ute  King.  He  defended,  in  the  tribune,  the  massacre  of 
the  pr'isoufua,  affirming,  that  the  tree  of  liberty  could  never  flou- 
ris.i,  wi:hju.i  b?in^  inundated  iviih  the  blood  of  aristocrats,  and 
oUer  tncmLs  ot  the  devolution.  He  has  been  convicted  by 
rivil  f.cuons  of  tUe  most  shameful  robberies,  and  his  infamy  and 
depravity  were  KO  notorious,  that  neither  Marat,  Brissot,  Robes- 
pierre, nor  the  Directory,  would  or  could  employ  him.  After 
the  revolution  of  the  9tn  November,  1799,  Buonaparte  gave  him 
the  ofrice  of  Judge  oft1,  e  Criminal  Tribunal,  and,  in  1804,  made 
him  a  Corutiiaiidtr  of  Us  Legion  of  Honour.  He  is  now  ci\e  of 
our  Emperor's  moat  faithful  subjects,  and  moat  sincere  Christians. 
Such  is  now  Lis  tender  conscientiousness,  that  he  was  among 
those  who  were  the  first  to  be  married  again  by  some  Cardinal  to 
their  present  wives  ;  to  whom  they  had  formerly  been  united  only 
by  the  municipality.  Tt.is  new  marriage,  however,  took  place 
before  Madame  Tnuiiot  had  introduced  herself  to  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  Imperial  Grenacjicr  Rabais. 


LETTER    XXX. 

FariS)  Jugusl,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

BEING  considered  as  a  connoisseur,  though  I  have  no  pre- 
tensions but  that  of  being  an  amateur,  Lucien  Buonaparte,  short- 
ly before  his  disgrace,  invited  me  to  pass  some  days  with  him 
in  the  country,  and  to  assist  him  in  arranging  his  very  valuable 
collection  of  pictures ;  next  our  public  ones,  the  most  curious  and 
most  valuable  in  Europe,  and  of  course  in  the  world.  I  found  here, 
as  at  Joseph  Buonaparte's,  the  same  splendour,  the  same  eti- 
quette, and  the  same  liberty  ;  which  latter  was  much  enhanced 
by  the  really  engaging  and  unassuming  manners  and  conversa- 
tion of  the  host.  At  Joseph's,  even  in  the  midst  of  abundance  and 
of  liberty,  in  seeing  the  person,  or  meditating  on  the  character 
of  the  host,  you  feel  both  your  inferiority  of  fortune  and  the  hu- 
miliation of  dependence,  and  that  you  visit  a  master  instead  of  a 
friend,  who  indirectly  tells  you, <  eat  drink,  and  rejoice,  as  long 
and  as  much  as  you  like  ;  but  remember,  that  if  you  are  happy, 
it  is  to  my  generosity  you  are  indebted  ;  and,  if  unhappy,  that- 


i-24  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THL' 

I  do  not  care  a  pin  about  you/  With  Lucien  it  is  the  very  re- 
verse. His  conduct  seems  to  indicate,  that,  by  your  company,  you 
confer  an  obligation  on  him  ;  and  he  is  studious  to  remove,  on 
all  occasions,  that  distance  which  fortune  has  placed  between 
him  and  his  guests  ;  and  as  he  cannot  compliment  them  upon 
being  wealthier  than  himself,  he  seizes  with  delicacy  every  op- 
portunity to  show  that  he  acknowledges  their  superiority  in  ta- 
lents and  in  genius,  as  more  than  an  equivalent  for  the  absence 
of  riches. 

US  is,  nevertheless,  himself  a  young  man  of  uncommon  parts, 
and,   as  far  as  I  could  judge  from  my  short  intercourse  with  the 
reserved  Joseph,  and  with  the  haughty  Napoleone,  he  is  abler 
and  better  informed  than  either,   and  much  more  open  and  sin- 
cere.    His  manners  are  also  more  elegant,    and    his  language 
more  polished  :  which  is  the  more  creditable  to  him,   when  it  is 
remembered  how  much  his  education  has  been  neglected,  how 
%itiated  the  revolution  made  him,  and  that  but  lately  his  princi- 
pal associates  were,  like  himself,  from  among  the  vilest  and  most 
vulgar  of  the  rabble.     It  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  keen   observer 
to  remark  in  Napoleone  the  upstart  soldier,  and  in  Joseph  the 
former  low  member  of  the  law  ;  but  I  defy  the  most  refined  cour- 
tier to  see  in  Lucien  any  thing  indicating  a  ci-devant  sans-cu- 
lotte.  He  has,  besides,  other  qualities,  (and  those  more  estimable) 
which  will  place  him  much  above  his  elder  brothers  in  the  opi- 
nions of  posterity.     He  is  extremely  compassionate   and  liberal 
to  the  truly  distressed  ;  serviceable  to  those  whom  he  knows  are 
not  his  friends,  and  forgiving  and  obliging  even  to  those   who 
have  proved  and  avowed  themselves  his  enemies.     These  are 
virtues  commonly  very  scarce,  and  hitherto  never  displayed   by 
any  other  member  of  the  Buonaparte  family. 

An  acquaintance  of  yours,  and  a  friend   of  mine,  Count  dc 

T ,  at  his  return  here  from  emigration,  found,    of  his 

whole  former  fortune,  producing  once  eighty  thousand  livre- 
(3,300/.)  in  the  year,  only  four  farms  unsold  ;  and  these  wen; 
advertised  for  sale.  A  man  who  had  once  been^his  servant,  but 
was  then  a  groom  to  Lucien,  offered  to  present  a  memorial  for 
him  to  his  master,  to  prevent  the  disposal  of  the  only  support 
which  remained  to  subsist  himself,  with  a  wife  and  four  children 
Lucien  asked  Napoleone  to  prohibit  the  sale,  and  to  restor' 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  125 

«ount  the  farms,  and  obtained  his  consent ;  but  Fouch'e,  whose 
cousin  wanted  them,  having  purchased  other  national  property 
in  tne  neighbourhood^  prevailed  on  Napoleone  to  forget  his  pro- 
mise, and  the  farms  were  sold.  As  soon  as  Lucien  heard  of  it, 
he  sent  for  the  count,  delivered  into  his  hand  an  annuity  of  six 
thousand  iivres  (2jO/.)  for  the  life  of  himself,  his  wife,  and  his 
children,  as  an  indemnity  for  the  inefficacy  of  his  endeavours  to 
serve  him,  as  he  expressed  himself.  Had  the  count  retained  the 
farms,  they  would  not  have  given  him  a  clear  profit  of  half  the 
amount,  all  taxes  paid. 

A  young  author,  of  the  name  of  Gauvan,  irritated  by  the  loss 
of  parents  and  fortune  by  the  revolution,  attacked,  during  1799,- 
in  the  public  prints  as  well  as  in  pamphlets,   every   revolutionist 
who  had  obtained  notoriety  or  popluarity.     He  was  particularly 
vehement  against  Lucien,  and  laid  before  the  public  all  his  crimes,, 
and  all    his  errors,    and     asserted    as   facts    atrocities     which 
were  either  calumnies  or  merely  rumours.     When,  after  Napo- 
leone's  assumption  of  the  consulate,  Lucien  was  appointed  a  mi- 
nister of  the  interior,   he   sent  for  Gauvan,  and   said    to    him> 
"  Great  misfortunes  have  early  made  you  wretched,  and  unjust ; 
and  you  have  frequently  revenged  yourself  on  those  who   could 
not  prevent  them  ;    among  whom  I  am  one.     You  do  not  want 
capacity,   nor,  I. believe,  probity.   Here  is  a  commission,  which 
makes  you  a  director  of  the  contributions  in  the  department   of 
the  Rhine  and  Moselle,  an  office  with  a  salary  of  twelve  thousand  Ii- 
vres, (5007.)  but  producing  double  that  sum.  If  you  meet  with  any 
difficulties,  write  to  me — I  am  your  friend.  Take  these  one  hun- 
dred louis-d'ors  for  the  expenses  of  your  journey,     Adieu  !"— - 
This  anecdote  I  have  read  in  Gauvan's  own  hand-writing,   in  a 
letter  to  his  sister. .    He  died  in  1 802  ;  but  Mademoiselle  Gauvan, 
who  is  not  yet  fifteen,   has  a  pension  of  three  thousand  Iivres  a 
year(125/.)  from  Lucien,  who  has  never  seen  her. 

Lucien  Buonaparte  has  another  good  quality  ;  he  is  consistent 
in  his  poiidcal  principles.  Either  from  conviction  or  delusion, 
he  is  still  u  republican  ;  and  does  not  conceal  that,  had  he  sus- 
pected Napoleorie  of  any  intent  to  re-estabiish  monarchy,  much 
less  tyranny,  he  would  have  joined  those  deputies,  who,  on  the  9th A 
of  November,  1799,  in  the  sitting  at  St.  Cloud,  demanded  a  cle= 
cree  of  outlawry  against  him.  If  the  present  quarrel  between. 

M  2 


i2t>  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

these  two  brothers  were  sifted  to  the  bottom,  perhaps  it  would  DC 
found  to  originate  more  from  Lucien's  republicanism  than  from 
his  marriage. 

I  know,  with  all  France  and  Europe,  that  Lucien's  youth  has 
been  very  culpable ;  that  he  has  committed  many  indiscretions, 
much  injustice,  many  imprudences,  many  errors,  and,  I  fear, 
even  some  crimes.  I  know  that  he  has  been  the  most  profli- 
gate among  the  profligate,  the  most  debauched  among  liber- 
tines, the  most  merciless  among  plunderers,  and  the  most  per- 
verse among  rebels.  I  know  that  he  is  accused  of  being  a  Sep- 
tembrizer ;  of  having  murdered  one  wife,  and  poisoned  another  ; 
of  having  been  a  spy,  a  denouncer,  a  persecutor  of  innocent  per- 
sons in  the  reign  of  terror.  I  know  that  he  is  accused  of  having 
fought  his  brothers-in-law  ;  of  having  ill-used  his  mother  ;  and 
of  an  incestuous  commerce  with  his  own  sisters.  I  have  read 
and  "heard  of  these  and  other  enormous  accusations  ;  and  far  be 
it  from  me  to  defend,  extenuate,  or  even  deny  them.  But  sup- 
pose all  his  infamy  to  be  real,  to  be  proved,  to  be  authenticated, 
which  it  never  has  been,  and,  to  its  whole  extent,  I  am  persua- 
ded, never  can  be  ;  what  are  the  cruel  and  depraved  acts  of  which 
Lucien  has  been  accused,  to  the  enormities  and  barbarities  of 
which  Napoleone  is  convicted.  Is  the  poisoning  a  wife  more 
criminal  than  the  poisoning  a  whole  hospital  of  wounded  sol- 
diers ?  or  the  assisting  to  kill  some  confined  persons,  suspected 
of  being  enemies,  more  atrocious  than  the  massacre,  in  cold  blood, 
of  thousands  of  disarmed  prisoners  ?  Is  incest  with  a  sister  more 
shocking  to  humanity  than  the  well-known,  unnatural,  pathic 

but  I  will  not  continue  the  disgusting  comparison.  As 

long  as  Napoleone  is  unable  to  acquit  himself  of  such  barbarities 
and  monstrous  crimes,  he  has  no  right  to  pronounce  Lucien  un- 
worthy to  be  called  his  brother  ;  nor  have  Frenchmen,  as  long 
as  they  obey  the  former  as  a  sovereign,  nor  has  the  continent,  as 
long  as  it  salutes  him  as  such,  any  reason  to  despise  the  latter, 
for  crimes  which  lose  their  enormity  when  compared  to  the  hor- 
rid perpetrations  of  his  Imperial  brother. 

An  elderly  lady,  a  relation  of  Lucien's  wife,  and  a  person  in 
whose  veracity  and  morality  I  have  the  greatest  confidence,  and 
for  whom  he  always  had  evinced  more  regard  than  even  for  his 
vwn  mother,  has  repeated  to  me  many  of  their  conversations. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  127 

She  assures  me,  that  Lucien  deplores  frequently  the  want  of  a 
good  and  religious  education,  and  the  tempting  examples  of  per- 
versity he  met  with  almost  at  his  entrance  upon  the  revolution- 
ary scene.     He  says  that  he  determined  to  get  rich  jicrfas  aut 
nrfas,  because  he  observed  that  money  was  every  thing ;  and 
that  most  persons  plotted  and  laboured  for  power  merely  to  be 
enabled  to  gather  treasure  ;  though,  after  they  had  obtained  both, 
much  above  their  desert  and  expectation,  instead  of  being  satiat- 
ed, or  even  satisfied,  they  bustled  and  intrigued  for  more,  until 
success   made  them  unguarded,  and  prosperity  indiscreet,  and 
they  became,  with  their  wealth,  the  easy  prey  of  rival  factions. 
Such  was  the  case  of  Dunton,  of  Fabre  d'Eglantine,  of  Chabot, 
of  Chaurnette,  of  Stebert,   and  other    contemptible   wretches, 
butchered  by   Robespierre  and  his  partisans  ;    victims  in  their 
4urn  to  men  as  unjust  and  sanguinary  as  themselves.     He  had 
therefore  laid  out  a  different  plan  of  conduct  for  himself.     He 
had  fixed  upon  fifty  millions  of  livres  (2,100,GOO/.)  as  the  maxi- 
mum he  should   wish  for ;   and  when  that  sum  was  in  his  pos- 
session, he  resolved  to  resign  all  pretensions  to  rank  and  em- 
ployment, and  to  enjoy  otium  cum  dignitute.     He  has  kept  to  his 
determination,  and  so  regulated  his  income,  that,  with  the  ex- 
penses, pomp,   and  retinue  of  a  prince,  he  is  enabled  to  make 
more  persons   happy  and  comfortable  than  his  extortions  have 
ruined,  or   even  embarrassed.     He  now  lives  like  a  ///«7c30/.7/(?r, 
and  endeavours  to  forget  the  past,  to  delight  in  the  present,  and 
to  be  indifferent  about  futurity.     He  chose  therefore  for  a  wife  a 
lady  whom  he  loved  and  esteemed,  in  preference  to  one  whose 
birth  would  have  been  a  continual  reproach  to  the  meanness  of 
his  own  origin. 

You  must  with  rne  admire  the  modesty  of  a  citizen  sans-cu- 
lotte,  who,  without  a  shilling  in  the  world,  fixes  upon  fifty  mil- 
lions as  a  reward  for  his  revolutionary  achievements,  and  with 
which  he  would  be  satisfied  to  sit  down  and  begin  his  singular 
course  of  singular  philosophy.  But  his  success  is  more  ex- 
traordinary than  his  pretensions  were  extravagant.  This  im- 
mense sum  was  amassed  by  him  in  the  short  period  of  four, 
years,  chiefly  by  bribes  from  foreign  courts,  and  by  selling  his 
protections  in  France. 


iSS  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

But  most  of  the  other  Buonapartes  have  made  as  great  arid 
as  rapid  fortunes  as  Lucien ;  and  yet  instead  of  being  generous, 
contented,  or  even  Jilalosofihers,  they  are  still  profiting,  by  every 
occasion,  to  increase  their  ill-gotten  treasures  ;  and  no  distress 
was  ever  relieved,  no  talents  encouraged,  or  virtues  recompensed 
by  them.  The  mind  of  their  garrets  lodges  with  them  in  their 
palaces ;  while  Lucien  seems  to  ascend  as  near  as  possible  to  a 
level  with  his  circumstances.  Without  being  ostentatious,  I 
have  myself  found  him  beneficent. 

Among  his  numerous  pictures  I  observed  four  that  had  former- 
ly belonged  to  my  father's,  and  afterwards  to  my  own  cabinet. 
I  inquired  how  much  he  had  paid  for  them,  without  giving  the 
least  hint  that  they  had  been  my  property,  and  were  plundered 
from  me  by  the  nation.  He  had  indeed  paid  their  full  value. 
In  a  fortnight  after  I  had  quitted  mm,  these,  with  six  other  pic- 
tures, were  deposited  in  my  room,  with  a  very  polite  note,  beg- 
ging my  acceptance  of  them,  and  assuring  me,  he  had 'but  the 
day  before  heard,  from  his  picture-dealer,  that  they  had  belonged 
to  me.  He  added  that  he  would  never  retake  them,  unless  he 
received  an  assurance  from  me  that  I  parted  with  them  without 
reluctance,  and  at  the  same  affixed  price.  I  returned  them,  as  I 
knew  they  were  desired  by  him  for  his  collection  ;  but  he  con- 
tinued obstinate.  I  told  him  therefore,  that,  as  I  was  acquainted 
with  his  inclination  to  perform  a  generous  action,  I  would,  in- 
stead of  payment  for  the  pictures,  indicate  it  person  deserving 
his  assistance.  I  mentioned  the  old  Duchess  de  ****,  .who  is 
seventy-four  years  of  age,  and  blind  ;  and,  after  possessing  in  her 
youth  an  income  of  eight  hundred  thousand  livres,  (33,0001.)  is 
now  in  her  old  age  almost  destitute.  He  did  for  this  worthy  lady 
more  than  I  expected  ;  but  happening  in  his  visits  to  relieve  my 
friend,  to  cast  his  eyes  on  the  daughter  of  the  landlady  where 
she  lodged,  he  found  means  to  prevail  on  the  simplicity  of  the 
poor  girl,  and  seduced  her.  So  much  do  I  know  personally  of 
Lucien  Buonaparte;  who  certainly  is  a  composition  of  good  and 
bad  qualities,  but  which  of  them  predominate  I  will  not  take. 
upon  me.  to  decide.  This  I  can  affirm— Lucien  is  not  the  worst - 
memlier  of  the  Buonaparte Jainity. . 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  129 

LETTER  XXXI. 

Paris,  August,  1 805, 

MY  LORD, 

AS  long  as  Austria  ranks  among  independent  nations,  Buo- 
naparte will  take  care  not  to  offend  or  alarm  the  ambition  and  in- 
terest of  Prussia,  by  incorporating  the  Batavian  Republic  with 
the  other  provinces  of  his  empire.  Until  that  period,  the  Dutch 
must  continue  (as  they  have  been  these  last  ten  years)  under  the 
appellation  of  allies,  oppressed  like  subjects,  and  plundered  like 
foes.  Their  mock  sovereignty  will  continue  to  weigh  heavier  OR 
them  than  real  servitude  does  on  their  Belgic  and  Flemish  neigh- 
bours, because  Frederic  the  Great  pointed  out  to  Lis  successors 
the  Elbe  and  the  Texel  as  the  natural  borders  of  the  Prussian 
monarchy,  whenever  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  should  form, 
the  natural  frontiers  of  the  kingdom  of  France. 

That  during  the  present  summer,  a  project  for  a  partition 
treaty  of  Holland  has,  by  the  cabinet  of  St.  Cloud,  been  laid  before 
the  cabinet  of  Berlin,  is  a  fact,  though  disseminated  only  as  a  ru- 
mour by  the  secret  agents  of  Talleyrand.  Their  object  was  on 
this,  as  on  all  previous  occasions,  when  any  names,  rights  or  lib- 
erties of  people  were  intended  to  be  erased  from  among  the  an- 
nals of  independence,  to  sound  the  ground,  and  to  prepare  by 
such  rumours  the  mind  of  the  public  for  another  outrage  and  ano- 
ther overthrow.  But  Prussia  as  well  as  France  knows  the  value 
of  a  military  and  commercial  navy,  and  that  to  obtain  it,  good 
harbours  and  navigable  rivers  are  necessary,  and  therefore,  as 
Well  as  from  principles  of  justice,  perhaps,  declined  the  accept- 
ance of  a  plunder,  which  though  tempting,  was  contrary  to  the 
policy  of  the  house  of  Brandenburgh. 

According  to  a  copy  circulated  among  the  members  of  our  di- 
plomatic corps,  this  partition  treaty  excluded  Prussia  from  all 
the  Batavian  sea-ports,  except  Delfzyl,  and  those  of  the  river 
Ems  ;  but  gave  her  extensive  territories  on  the  side  of  Guelder- 
land,  and  a  rich  country  in  Friesland.  Had  it  been  acceded  to 
by  the  court  of  Berlin,  with  the  annexed  condition  of  a  defensive 
and  offensive  alliance  with  the  court  of  St.  Cloud,  the  Prussian 
monarchy  would,  within  half  a  century,  have  been  swallowed  up 
in  the  same  gulf,  with  the  Batavian  commonwealth  and  the  re- 
public of  Poland  ;  and  by  some  future  scheme  of  some  fu« 


ISO  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

ture  Buonaparte  or  Talleyrand,  be  divided  in  its  turn,  and  serve 
as  a  pledge  of  reconciliation  or  inducement  of  connexion  between 
some  future  rulers  of  the  French  and  Russii-n  empires. 

Taileyrand  must  indeed  have  a  very  mean  opinion  of  the  capa- 
city of  the  Prussian  ministers,  or  a  hi^b  notion  of  his  own  influ- 
ence over  them,  if  he  was  serious  in  this  overture.  Foi  my 
part,  I  am  rather  inclined  to  think  tisat  it  w;  s  merely  thrown  out 
to  discover  wlxethei*  Frederick  William  III.  had  entered  into  any 
engagement  coijtijrary.  to  the  interest  of  Napokone  the  first  ;  or 
to  allure  his  Jp.ru^sun-  majesty  into  a  negotiation,  which  would 
suspend,  or  *it  least-ii^terf^re  with  those  supposed  to  be  then  on 
the  carpet  with  Austria,  Russia,  or  perhaps  even  with  England. 

The  late  BatavLvn  government  had,  ever  since  the  beginning 
of  the  present  war  with  L  inland,  incurred  the  displeasure  of 
Buonaparte.  When  it  apprehended  a  rupture  from  the  turn 
which  the  discussion  respecting  the  occupation  of  Malta  assum- 
ed, the  Dutch  ambassadors  at  St.  Petersburg h  and  Berlin  were 
ordered  to  demand  the  interference  of  these  two  cabinets,  for  the 
preservation  of  the.  neutrality  of  Holland  ;  which  your  country 
had  promised  to  acknowledge,  if  respected  by  France.  No  soon- 
er was  Buonaparte  informed  of  this  step,  than  he  marched  troops 
into  the  heart  of  the  Batavian  Republic,  and  occupied  its  princi- 
pal forts,  ports,  and  arsenals.  When,  sometime  afterwards, 
Count  de  Markoff  received  instructions  from  his  court,  accord- 
ing to  the  desire  of  the  Batavian  Directory,  and  demanded,  in 
^consequence,  an  audience  from  Buonaparte,  a  map  was  laid  be- 
fore him,  indicating  the  position  of  the  French  troops  in  Holland, 
and  plans  of  t;ie  intended  encampment  of  our  Army  of  England 
on  the  coast  of  Flanders  and  France  ;  and  he  was  asked,  whether 
he  thought  it  probable  that  our  government  would  assent  to  a 
neutrality  so  injurious  to  iis-ojfciisive  operations  against  Great- 
Britain  ?  "  But,"  said  the  Russian  ambassador,  "  the  independ- 
ence of  Holland  has  been  admitted  by  you  in  formal  treaties." — 
"  So  has  the  cession  of  Malta  by  England,"  interrupted  Buona- 
parte with  impatience. — "  True,"  replied  Markoff,  "  but  you 
are  now  at  war  with  England  for  this  point,  while  Holland, 
against  which  you  have  no  complaint,  has  not  only  been  invaded 
by  your  troops,  but,  contrary  both  to  its  inclination  and  interest, 
ipvolvedin  a  wrar  with  you,  by  \viiich  it  has  much  to  lose,  and  no- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  i-ai 

thing  to  gain." — "  I  have  no  account  to  render  to  any  body  for 
my  transactions,  and  I  desire  to  hear  nothing  more  on  this  sub- 
ject," said  Buonaparte,  retiring  furious,  and  leaving  Markoffto 
meditate  on  our  sovereign's  singular  principles  of  political  jus- 
tice, and  of  jus  gentium. 

From  that  period,  Buonaparte  resolved  on  another  change  of  the 
executive  power  of  the  Batavian  Republic.  But  it  is  more  easy 
to  displace  one  set  of  men  for  another,  than  to  find  proper  ones  to 
occupy  a  situation  in  which,  if  they  do  their  duty  as  patriots, 
they  must  offend  France  ;  and  if  they  are  our  tools,  instead  of 
the  independent  governors  of  their  country,  they  must  excite  a 
discontent  among  their  fellow  -citizens  ;  disgracing  themselves 
as  individuals,  and  exposing  themselves  as  chief  magistrates  to 
the  fate  of  the  De  Witts,  should  ever  fortune  forsake  our  arms 
or  desert  Buonaparte. 

No  country  has  of  late  been  less  productive  of  great  men  than 
Holland.  The  Van  Tromps,  the  Russels,  and  the  Williams  III. 
all  died  without  leaving  any  posterity  behind  them  ;  and  the  race 
of  Batavian  heroes  seems  to  have  expired  with  them,  as  that  of 
patriots  with  the  De  WTitts  and  Barneveklt.  Since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  century  we  read  indeed  of  some  able  statesmen, 
as  most,  if  not  all,  the  former  grand  pensionaries  have  been  ;  but 
the  name  of  no  warrior  of  any  great  eminence  is  recorded.  This 
scarcity  of  native  genius  and  valour  has  not  a  little  contributed 
to  the  present  humbled,  disgraced  and  oppressed  state  of  wretch- 
ed Batavia. 

Admiral  De  Winter  certainly  neither  wants  c.ourap;e  nor  ge- 
nius, but  his  private  character  has  a  great  resemblance  to  that 
of  general  Moreau.  Nature  has  destined  him  to  obey,  and  not 
to  govern  :  he  may  direct  as  ably  and  as  valiantly  the  manoeu- 
vres of  a  fleet,  as  Moreau  does  those  of  an  army  ;  but  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  at  the  head  of  his  nation  would  long  render 
himself  respected,  his  country  flourishing,  or  his  countrymen 
happy  and  tranquil. 

Destined  from  his  youth  for  the  navy,  admiral  De  Winter  en- 
tered into  the  naval  service  of  his  country  before  he  was  four- 
teen, and  was  a  second  lieutenant  when  the  Batavian  /latrioix,  in 
rebellion  against  the  Stadtholder,  Were,  in  1787,  reducc-cl  to  sub- 
mission by  the  duke  of  Brunswick,  the  commander  of  the  Pius- 


132  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

clan  army  that  invaded  Holland.     His  parents  and  family  being 
of  the  anti-orange  party,  he  emigrated  to  France,  where  he  was 
made  an  officer  in  the  Legion  of  Batavian  refugees.     During  the 
campaign  in  1793  and  1794,  he  so  much  distinguished  himself, 
under  that  competent  judge  of  merit,   Pichegru,  that  this  com- 
mander obtained  for  him  the  commission  of  a  general  of  brigade 
in  the  service  of  the  French;  which,  after  the  conquest  of  Hol- 
land in  January,  1795,  was  exchanged  for  a  vice-admiral  of  the 
Batavian   Republic.     His  exploits  as  commander  of  the  Dutch 
fleet,  during  the  battle  of  the  llth  of  October,  1797,  with  your 
fleet  under  Lord  Duncan,  I  have  heard  applauded  even  in  your 
presence,  when  in  your  country.     Too  honest  to  be  seduced,  and 
too  brave  to  be  intimidated,  he  is  said  to  have  incurred  Buona- 
parte's hatred,  by   resisting  both  his  offers  and  threats,  and  de- 
clining to  sell  his  own  liberty  as  well  as  to  betray  the  liberty  of 
his  fellow-subjects.     When,  in    1 800,  Buonaparte  proposed  to 
him  the  presidency  and  consulate  of  the  United  States  for  life,  on 
condition  that  he  should  sign  a  treaty,  which  jmade  him  a  vassal 
of  France,  he  refused  with  dignity  and  with  firmness  ;  and  pre- 
ferred retirement  to  a  supremacy  so  dishonourably  acquired,  and 
so  dishonourably  occupied k 

General  Daendels,  another  Butavian  revolutionist  of  some  no- 
toriety, from  an  attorney  became  a  lieutenant-colonel,  and  served 
as  a  spy  under  Dumourier  in  the  winter  of  1792,  and  in  the 
spring  of  1793.  Under  Pichegru  he  was  made  a  general,  and 
exhibited  those  talents  in  the  field  which  are  s?dd  to  have  before 
been  displayed  in  the  forum.  In  June,  1795,  he  was  made  a 
lieutenant-general  of  the  Bataviun  Republic,  and  he  was  the  com* 
jnander  in  chief  of  the  Dutch  troops,  combating  in  1799,  your 
army,  under  the  Duke  of  York.  In  this  place  he  did  not  much 
distinguish  himself,  and  the  issue  of  the  contest  was  entirely  ow- 
ing to  our  troops  and  to  our  generals. 

After  the  peace  of  Amiens.,  observing  that  Buonaparte  intend- 
ed to  annihilate,  instead  of  establish  universal  liberty,  DUCR- 
dels  gave  in  his  resignation,  and  retired  to  obscurity  ;  not  wish- 
ing to  be  an  instrument  of  tyranny,  after  having  so  long  fought 
for  freedom.  Had  he  possessed  the  patriotism  of  a  Brutus  or  a 
Cato,  he  would  have  bled  or  died  for  his  cause  and  country,  soon- 
er t-.uin  have  deserted  them  both  ;  or  had  the  ambition  and  love 
of  glory  of  Cscsar  lu-ld  a  pluce  in  his  boscm,  he  would  have  at 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOl 

cd  to  be  the  chief  of  his  country,  and  by  generosity  and 
clemency  atone,  if  possible,  for  the  loss  of  liberty.  Upon  the  line 
of  baseness,  the  deserter  is  placed  next  to  the  traitor, 

Dumonceau,  another  Batavian  general  of  some  publicity,  is  not 
by  birth  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  but  was  born  at  Brussels 
in  1753,  and  was  by  profession  a  stone-mason,  when,  in  1789,  he 
joined,  as  a  volunteer,  the  Belgian  insurgents.  After  their  dis- 
persion, in  1790,  he  took  refuge  and  served  in  France,  and  was 
made  an  officer  in  the  corps  of  Belgians,  formed  after  the  decla- 
ration of  war  against  Austria,  in  1792.  Here  he  frequently  dis- 
tinguished himself,  and  was  therefore  advanced  to  the  rank  of  a 
general  ;  but  the  Dutch  general  officers  being  better  paid  than 
those  of  the  French  Republic,  he  was,  with  the  permission  of 
our  Directory,  received,  in  1795,  as  a  lieutenant-general  ©f  the 
Batdvian  Republic.  He  has  often  evinced  bravery,  but  seldom 
great  capacity.  His  natural  talents  are  considered  as  but  indif- 
ferent, and  his  education  is  worse. 

These  are  the  only  three  military  characters  who  might,  with 
any  prospect  of  success,  have  tried  to  play  the  part  of  a  Napo- 
leone  Buonaparte  in  Holland. 


LETTER    XXXIL 

Paris)  August,   1805, 

MY    LORD, 

NOT  to  give  umbrage  to  the  cabinet  of  Berlin,  Buonaparte 
communicated  to  it  the  necessity  he  was  under  of  altering  the 
form  of  government  in  Holland,  and,  if  report  be  true,  even  con- 
descended to  ask  ad-vice  concerning  a  chief  magistrate  for  that 
country.  The  young  prince  of  Orange,  brother-in-law  of  his 
Prussian  Majesty,  naturally  presented  himself;  but,  after  some 
time,  Talleyrand's  agents  discovered  that  great  pecuniary  sacri- 
fices could  not  be  expected  from  that  quarter,  and  perhaps  less 
su'imission  to  France  experienced  than  from  the  former  gover- 
nors. An  eye  was  then  cast  on  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  whose 
pu:»i  I'.atri^tisnii  as  well  as  that  of  his  ministers,  Were  full  guaran- 
tees of  future  obedience.  Had  he  consented  to  such  an  arrange- 


134  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

merit,  Austria  might  have  aggrandized  herself  on  the  Inn  ;  Prus- 
sia in  Franconia,  and  France  in  Italy ;  and  the  present  bone  of 
contest  been  chiefly  removed. 

This  intrigue,  for  it  was  nothing  else,  was  carried  on  by  the  ca- 
binet of  St.  Cloud,  in  March  1804,  about  the  time  that  Germany 
was  invaded,  and  the  duke  d'Enghien  seized.  This  explains  to 
you  tiie  reason  why  the  Russian  note  delivered  to  the  Diet  of 
Ratisbcn  on  the  8th  of  May  following,  was  left  without  any  sup- 
port, except  the  ineffectual  one  from  the  king  of  Sweden.  How 
any  cabinet  could  be  dupe  enough  to  think  Buonaparte  serious, 
or  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  so  weak  as  to  enter  into  his  schemes,  is 
difficult  to  be  conceived,  had  not  Europe  witnessed  still  greater 
credulity  on  one  side,  and  still  greater  effrontery  on  the  other. 

In  the  mean  time  Buonaparte  grew  every  day  more  discon- 
tented with  the  Batavian  Directory,  and  more  irritated  against 
the  members  who  composed  it.  Against  his  regulations  for  ex- 
cluding the  commerce  and  productions  of  your  country,  they  re- 
presented with  spirit,  instead  of  obeying  without  murmur,  as 
was  required.  He  is  said  to  have  discovered,  after  his  own  sol- 
diers had  forced  the  custom-house  officers  to  obey  his  orders, 
that,  while  in  their  proclamations  the  directors  publicly  prohibit- 
ed the  introduction  of  British  goods,  some  of  them  were  secret 
insurers  of  this  forbidden  merchandise,  introduced  by  fraud  and 
by  smuggling  ;  and  that  while  they  officially  wished  for  the  suc- 
cess of  the  French  arms  and  destruction  of  England,  they  with- 
drew by  stealth  what  property  they  had  in  the  French  funds,  to 
place  it  in  the  English.  This  refractory,  and,  as  Buonaparte 
called  it,  mercantile  spirit,  so  enraged  him,  that  he  had  already 
signed  an  order  for  arresting  and  transferring  en  masse  his  high 
allies,  the  Butavian  directors,  to  his  Temple,  when  the  represen- 
tations of  Talleyrand  moderated  his  fury,  and  caused  tit  order 
to  be  recalled,  which  Fouche  was  ready  to  execute. 

Had  Jerome  Buonaparte  not  offended  his  brother  by  his  trans- 
atlantic marriage,  he  Would  long  ago  have  been  the  Prince  Stadt- 
holder  of  Holland  ;  but  Ins  disobedience  was  so  far  useful  to  the 
cabinet  of  St.  Cloud,  as  it  gave  it  an  opportunity  of  intriguing 
with  or  deluding  other  cabinets,  that  might  have  any  pretensions 
to  interfere  in  the  regulations  of  the  Batavian  government.  By 
the  choice  finally  made,  you  may  judge  h»w  difficult  it  was  to 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  13.5 

find  a  suitable  subject  to  represent  it,  and  that  this  representation 
is  intended  only  to  be  temporary. 

Schimmelpenninck,  the  present  grand  pensionary  of  the  Bata 
vian  Republic,  was  destined  by  education  for  the  bar,  but  by  his 
natural  parts,  to  await  in  quiet  obscurity  the  end  of  a  dull  exist- 
ence. With  some  property,  little  information,  and  a  tolerably- 
good  share  of  com; i ion  sense,  he  might  have  lived  and- died  re 
spccted,  and  evtn  regretted,  without  any  pretension,  or  perhaps 
even  ambition  to  s-.ine.  The  anti-orange  faction,  to  which  his 
parents  and  family  appertained,  pushed  him  forward,  and  electee? 
him,  in  1795,  a  member  of  the  first  Batavian  National  Conven- 
tion, where,  according  to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  his  speeches 
were  rather  those  of  a  demagogue  than  those  of  a  republican 
Liberty,  equality  and  fraternity  were  the  constant  themes  of  his 
political  declamations  ;  infidelity  his  religious  professions  ;  and 
the  examples  of  immorality  i.is  social  lessons.  So  rapid  ami 
dangerous  are  the  stiides  with  which  seduction  frequently  ad- 
vances on  weak  minds. 

In  1800,  he  was  appointed  an  ambassador  to  Napoleone  Buo 
naparte  and  Charles  Maurice  Talleyrand.  The  latter  ustci  him 
as  a  stock-broker,  and  the  former  for  any  thing-  he  thought  pro- 
per ;  and  he  was  the  humble  and  submissive  valet  of  both.  More 
ignorant  than  malicious,  and  a  greater  fool  than  rogue,  he  was 
more  laughed  at  and  despised  than  trusted  or  abused.  His  pa- 
tience being  equal  to  his  phlegm,  nothing  either  moved  or  con- 
founded him  ;  and  he  was,  as  Talleyrand  remarked,  "  a  model 
01  an  ambassador,  according  to  which  he  and  Buonaparte  wished 
that  all  other  independent  princes  and  states  would  choose  their 
representatives  to  the  French  government." 

When  our  minister  and  his  sovereign  were  discussing  the  dif- 
ficulty of  properly  filing  u/i  the  vacancy  of  the  Dutch  govern- 
ment, judged  necessary  by  both,  the  former  mentioned  Schim* 
melpenninck  with  a  smile,  and,  serious  as  Buonaparte  commonly 
is,  he  could  not  help  laughing.  "  I  should  have  been  less  as- 
tonished/' said  he,'-  had  you  proposed  my  Mameluke  Kostan." 
This  rebuke  did  not  deter  Talleyrand  (who  had  settled  his  terms 
with  Schimmelpenninck)  from  continuing  to  point  out  the  advan- 
tage which  France  would  derive  from  this  nomination,  "  because 
oo  man  could  easier  be  directed  when  in  office.,  and  no  man  easier- 


136  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

turned  out  of  office  when  disagreeable  and  unnecessary.  Both  as 
Batavian  Plenipotentiary  at  Amiens,  and  as  Batavian  Ambassa- 
dor in  England,  he  had  proved  himself  as  obedient  and  submis- 
sive to  France  as  when  in  the  same  capacity  at  Paris. 

By  returning  often  to  the  charge,  with  these  and  other  re- 
marks, Talleyrand  at  hst  accustomed  Buonaparte  to  the  idea, 
which  had  once  appeared  so  humiliating,  of  writing  to  a  man  so 
much  inferior  in  every  thing,  "  Great  mid  Dear  Friend .'"  and  there- 
fore said  to  the  minister,  "  Well !  let  us  then  make  him  a  grand 
pensionary,  and  a  lc-ci:?n  tcnens fir  Jive  years  ;  or  until  Jerome,  when 
he  repents,  returns  to  his  duty,  and  is  pardoned." — "  Is  he  then 
not  to  be  a  grand  pensionary  for  life  ?"  asked  Talleyrand  ;  "  whe- 
ther for  one  month  or  for  life,  he  would  be  equally  obedient  to  re- 
sign when  commanded  ;  but  the  latter  would  be  more  popular 
in  Holland,  where  they  were  tired  of  so  many  changes." — "  Let 
them  complain,  if  they  dare,"  replied  Buonaparte.  Schimmcl- 
penninck  is  their  chief  magistrate  only  for  five  years,  if  so  long  j 
but  you  may  add  that  they  may  re-elect  him." 

It  was  not  before  Talleyrand  had  compared  the  pecuniary  pro- 
posal, made  to  his  agents  by  foreign  princes,  with  those  of  Schirn- 
melpenninck  to  himself,  that  the  latter  obtained  the  preference. 
The  exact  amount  of  their  purchase-money  for  the  supreme 
magistracy  in  Holland  is  not  well  known  to  any  but  the  contract- 
ing parties.  Some  pretended  that  the  whole  was  paid  down  be- 
fore-hand, being  advanced  by  a  society  of  merchants  at  Amster- 
dam, the  fi  icnds  or  relatives  of  the  grand  pensionary;  others, 
ihat  it  is  to  be  paid  by  annual  instalments  of  two  millions  of  livres, 
(  84,0001.)  for  a  certain  number  of  years.  Certain  it  is,  that  this 
Li^h  office  was  sold  and  bought;  and  that  had  it  been  giver.  ir,t 
life,  its  value  would  have  been  proportionably  enhanced;  \vhicl-. 
was  the  reason  that  Talleyrand  endeavoured  to  have  it  thus  es- 
tablished. 

Talleyrand  well  knew  the  precarious  state  of  Schimmelpen- 
nmck's  grandeur;  that  it  not  only  depended  upon  the  whim  ni 
Napoleone,  but  had  long  been  intended  as  a  hereditary  soverc  \ 
for  Jerome.  Another  Dutchman  asked  him  not  to  ruin  his  friend 
and  his  family,  for  what  he  was  well  aware  could  never  be  called 
a  sinecure  place,  and  was  so  precarious  in  its  tenure.  "  Foolish  va- 
nity," answered  the  minister,  «  can  never  pav 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  l-Sf 

tification  of  its  desires.  AH  the  Schimmelpennincks  in  the  world 
do  not  possess  property  enough  to  recompense  me  for  the  sove- 
reign honours  which  I  have  procured  for  one  of  their  name  and 
family,  were  he  even  deposed  in  twenty-four  hours.  What  trea- 
sures can  indemnify  ine  for  connecting  such  a  name  and  such  a 
personage  with  the  great  name  of  the  emperor  of  the  French  ?" 
I  have  only  twice  in  my  life,  been  in  Schimmelpenninck's  com- 
pany, and  I  thought  him  both  timid  and  reserved  ;  but,  from 
what  little  he  said,  I  could  not  possibly  judge  of  his  character 
and  capacity  i  His  portrait  and  its  accompaniments  have  been 
presented  to  me,  such  as  delivered  to  you  by  one  of  his  coun- 
trymen, a  Mr.  M ,  (formerly  an  ambassador  also)  who 

was  both  his  school-fellow,  and  his  class-mate  at  the  university, 
I  shall  add  the  following  traits,  in  his  own  words  as  nearly  as 
possible.  More  vain  than  ambitious,  Schimmelpenninck,  from  his 
youth,  and  particularly  from  his  entrance  into  public  life,  tried  eve- 
ry means  to  make  a  noise,  but  found  none  to  gain  a  reputation.  He 
caressed,  in  succession,  all  the  systems  of  the  French  revolution, 
without  adopting  one  for  himself.  All  the  kings  of  faction,  received 
in  their  turns,  his  homage  anclhis  felicitations.  It  was  impossible  to 
mention  to  him  a  man  of  any  notoriety,  of  whom  he  did  not  become 
immediately  a  partisan.  The  virtues  or  the  vices,  the  merit  or 
defects,  of  the  individual  were  of  no  consideration  ;.  according  to 
his  judgment,  it  was  sufficient  to  be  famous.  Yet,  with  all  the 
extravagances  of  a  head  filled  with  paradoxes,  and  of  a  heart 
spoiled  by  modern  philosophy,  added  to  a  habit  of  licentious- 
ness, he  had  no  idea  of  becoming  an  instrument  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  liberty  in  his  own  country,  much  less  of  becoming  its  ty- 
rant, in  submitting  to  be  the  slave  of  France.  It  was  but  lately, 
that  he  took  the  fancy,  after  so  long  admiring  all  other  great  men 
of  our  age,  to  be  at  any  rate  one  of  their  number,  and- of  being 
admired  as  -A great  man  in  his  turn,  On  this  account,  many  ac- 
cuse him  of  hypocrisy,  but  no  one  deserves^  that  appellation  less ; 
his  vanity  and  exaltation  never  permitting  him  to  dissimulate? 
and  no  presumption,  therefore,  was  less  disguised  than  his,  to 
those  who  studied  the  man.  Without  acquired  ability  ;  without 
natural  genius  or  political  capacity  ;  destitute  of  discretion  and 

N  2 


1S8  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

address  ;   as  confident  and  obstinate  as  ignorant,  he  is  only  ele- 
vated to  fall,   and  to  rise  no  more." 

Madame  Schimmelpenninck,  I  was  informed,  is  as  amiable 
and  accomplished,  as  her  husband  is  awkward  and  deficient ; 
chough  \vell  acquainted  with  his  infidelities  and  profligacy,  she 
is  too  virtuous  to  listen  to  revenge,  and  too  generous  not  to  for- 
give. She  is,  besides,  said  to  be  a  lady  of  uncommon  abilities, 
and  of  greater  information  than  she  chooses  to  display.  She  has 
never  been  the  worshipper  of  Buonaparte,  nor  the  friend  of  Tal- 
leyrand ;  she  loved  her  country  and  detested  its  tyrants.  Had 
•>/;<?  been  created  a  grand  pensionary,  she  would  certainly  have 
swayed  with  more  glory  than  her  husband  ;  and  been  hailed  by 
contemporaries,  as  well  as  posterity,  if  not  a  heroine,  at  least  a 
patriot — a  title  which,  in  our  times,  though  often  prostituted,  so 
lew  have  any  claim  to,  and,  therefore,  so  much  the  more  valua- 
ble. 

When  it  was  known  at  Paris,  that  Schimmelpenninck  had  set 
out  for  his  new  sovereignty,  no  less  .than  sixteen  girls  of  the  Pa- 
lais Royal  demanded  passes  for  Holland.  Being  questioned  by 
Fouche,  as  to  their  business  in  that  country,  they  answered,  that 
they  intended  to  visit  their  friend  the  grand  pensionary,  in  his  new 
dominions.  Fouche  communicated  to  Talleyrand  both  their  de- 
mands and  their  business,  and  asked  his  advice.  He  replied, 
"  send  two,  and  those  of  whose  vigilance  and  intelligence  you  are 
:,ure.  Refuse, by  all  means,  the  other  fourteen.  Schimmelpen- 
ninck's  time  is  precious  ;  and  were  they  at  the  Hague,,  he  would 
neglect  every  thing  for  them.  If  they  are  fond  of  travelling,  and 
are  handsome  and  adroit,  advise  them  to  set  out  for  London  or 
St.  Petersburg!*  ;  and  if  they  consent,  order  them  to  my  office, 
and  they  shall  be  supplied,  if  approved  of,  both  with  instruc- 
tions and  travelling  expenses."  Fouche  answered  his  colleague, 
i(  that  they  were  in  every  respect,  the  very  reverse  of  this  de- 
scription ;  that  they  seemed  to  have  passed  their  lives  in  the 
lowest  stage  of  infamy,  and  that  they  could  neither  read  nor 
write."  You  have,  therefore,  no.  reason  to  fear  that  these  belles 
will  be  sent  to  disseminate  corruption  in  your  happy  island, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  139 

LETTER  XXXIII. 

Paris,  dugust,    1805. 


MY  LORD, 

THE  Italian  subjects  of  Napoleone  the  first,  were  far  from 
displaying  the  same  zeal  and  the  same  gratitude  for  his  paternal 
care  and  kindness,  in  taking  upon  himself  the  trouble  of  govern- 
ing them,  as  we  good  Parisians  have  done.  Notwithstanding 
that  a  brigade  of  our  police  agents  aad  spies,  drilled  for  years  to 
applaud  and  excite  enthusiasm,  proceeded,  as  his  advanced  guard, 
to  raise  the  public  spirit,  the  reception  at  Milan  was  cold,  and 
every  thing  elst;  but  cordial  or  pleasing.  This  absence  of  duty 
did  net  escape  his  observation  and  resentment.  Convinced,  in 
his  own  mind,  of  the  great  blessing,  prosperity  and  liberty,  his 
victories  and  sovereignty  have  conferred  on  the  inhabitants  of 
the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  he  ascribed  their  present  passive  or 
mutinous  behaviour  to  the  effect  of  foreign  emissaries,  from 
courts  envious  of  his  glory,  and  jealous  of  his  authority. 

He  suspected,  particularly,  England  and  Russia,  of  having  se- 
lected this  occasion  of  a  solemnity  that  would  complete  his  gran- 
deur, to  humble  his  just  pride.  He  had  also  some  idea  within 
himself,  that  even  Aubiria  might  indirectly  have  dared  to  influ- 
ence the  sentiments  and  conduct  of  her  ci-dcvant  subjects  of 
Lombardy  ;  but  his  own  high  opinion  of  the  awe  which  his  very 
name  inspired  at  Vienna,  dispersed  these  thoughts,  and  his  wrath 
fell  entirely  on  the  audacity  of  Pitt  and  IVlarkofT.  Strict  orders  were 
therefore  issued  to  the  prefects  and  emissaries  of  police,  to  watch 
vigilantly  all  foreigners  and  strangers  who  might  have  arrived,  or 
v/ho  should  arrive,  to  witness  the  ceremony  of  the  coronation, 
and  to  arrest,  instantly,  any  one  who  should  give  the  least  reason 
to  suppose  that  he  was  an  enemy,  instead  of  an  admirer,  of  his 
Imperial  and  royal  majesty.  He  also  commanded  the  prefects 
of  his  palace,  not  to  permit  any  persons  to  approach  his  sacred 
person,  o-f  whose  morality  and  politics  they  had  not  previously 
obtained  a  good  account. 

These  great  measures  of  security  were  not  entirely  unneces- 
sary. Individual  vengeance,  and  individual  patriotism,  sharpen- 
ed their  daggers,  aiid>  to  use  senator  Rcederer's  language., 


140  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

^  were  near  transforming  the  most  glorious  day  of  rejoicing,  into 
a  day  of  wwVeraa/ motif  ning." 

All  our  writers  on  the  revolution  agree,  that  in  France,  within 
the  first  twelve  years  after  we  had  reconquered  our  lost  liberty, 
more  conspiracies  have  been  denounced,  than  during  the  six  cen- 
turies of  the  most  brilliant  epoch  of  ancient  and  free  Rome. — 
These  facts  and  avowals  are  speaking  evidences  of  the  internal 
tranquillity  of  our  unfortunate  country,  of  our  affection  to  our  ru- 
lers, and  of  the  unanimity  with  which  all  the  changes  of  govern- 
ment have  been,  notwithstanding  our  printed  -votes,  received  and 
approved. 

The  frequency  of  conspiracies  not  only  shows  the  discontent 
of  the  governed,  but  the  insecurity  and  instability  of  the  gover- 
nors. This  truth  has  not  escaped  Napoleone,  who  has,  there- 
fore, ordered  an  expeditious  and  secret  justice  to  dispatch  instant- 
ly the  conspirators,  and  to  bury  the  conspiracy  in  oblivion,  ex- 
cept when  any  grand  coup -d'etat  is  to  be  struck  ;  or  to  excite 
the  passions  of  hatred,  any  proofs  can  be  found,  or  must  be  fa- 
bricated, involving  an  inimical  or  rival  foreign  government  in  an 
oilious  plot.  Since  the  farce  which  Mehee  de  la  Touche  exhib- 
ited, therefore,  you  have  not  read  in  the  Moniteur,  either  of  the 
danger  our  emperor  has  incurred  several  times  since,  from  the  ma- 
chinations of  implacable  or  fanatical  foes,  or  of  the  alarm  these 
have  caused  his  partisans.  They  have,  indeed,  been  hinted  at 
in  some  speeches  of  our  public  functionaries,  and  in  some  para- 
graphs of  our  public  prints  ;  but  their  particulars  will  remain 
concealed  from  historians,  unless  some  one  of  those,  composing 
our  court,  our  fashionable,  or  our  particular  circles,  have  taken 
the  trouble  of  noting  them  down  ;  but,  even  to  those,  they  are 
but  imperfectly  or  incorrectly  known. 

Could  the  veracity  of  a  Fouche,  a  Real,  a  Talleyrand,  or  a  I>u- 
roc  (the  only  members  of  tT  Ii  new  secret  and  invisible  tribunal 
for  expediting  conspirators)  be  depended  upon,  they  would  be 
the  most  authentic  annalists  of  these  and  other  interesting  secret 
occurrences. 

What  I  intend  relating  to  you  on  this  subject  are  circumstan- 
ces, such  as  they  have  been  reported  in  our  best  informed  socie- 
ties, by  our  most  inquisitive  companions.  Truth  is  certainly  the 
foundation  of  these  anecdotes  ;  but  their  parts  may  be  extenua- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  141 

ted,  diminished,  altered,  or  exaggerated.  Defective  or  incom- 
plete as  tiiey  are,  I  hope  you  will  not  judge  them  unworthy  of  a 
page  in  a  letter,  considering*  the  grand  personage  they  concern, 
and  the  mystery  with  which  he  and  his  government  encompass 
themselves,  or  in  which  they  wrap  up  every  thing,  not  agreea- 
ble, concerning  them. 

A  woman  is  said  to  have  been  at  the  head  of  the  first  plot 
against  Napoleone,  since  his  proclamation  as  an  emperor  of  the 
French.  She  called  herself  Charlotte  Encore  ;  but  her  real 
name  is  not  known.  In  1803,  she  had  lived  and  furnished  a 
house  at  Abbeville,  where  she  passed  for  a  widow  of  property, 
subsisting  on  her  rents.  About  the  same  time,  several  other 
strangers  settled  there  ;  but  though  she  visited  the  principal  in- 
habitants, she  never  publicly  had  any  connexion  with  the  new 
comers. 

In.  the  summer  of  1803,  a  girl  at  Amiens,  some  say  a  real 
enthusiast  of  Buonaparte's,  but  according  to  others,  engaged  by 
Madame  Buonaparte  to  perform  the  parts  she  did,  demanded, 
upon  her  knees,  in  a  kind  of  paroxysm  of  joy,  the  happiness  of 
embracing  him ;  in  doing  which  she  fainted,  or  pretended  to 
faint  away,  and  a  pension  of  three  thousand  livres  (125/.)  was 
.settled  on  her  for  her  affection. 

Madame  Encore,  at  Abbeville,  to  judge  of  her  discourse  and 
conversation,  was  also  an  ardent  friend  and  well-wisher  of  the 
:.  sr.;j..:ror ;  and  when,  in  July,  1504,  he  passed  through  Abbe- 
ille,  in  his  journey  to  the  coast,  -she  also  threw  herself  at  his 
feet,  and  declared  that  she  would  die  content,  if  allowed  the  ho- 
nour of  embracing  him.  To  this  he  was  going  to  assent, 
when  Duroc  stepped  between  them,  seized  her  by  the  arm,  and 
dragged  her  to  an  adjoining  room,  wLithci-  Buonaparte,  near 
fainting,  from  the  sudden  alarm  his  friend's  interference  had  oc- 
casioned, followed  him,  trembling.  In  the  right  sleeve  of  Mad- 
ame Encore's  gown,  was  found  a  stiletto,  the  point  of  which 
was  poisoned.  She  was  the  same  day  transported  to  this  capi- 
tal, under  the  inspection  of  Duroc,  and  imprisoned  in  the  tem- 
ple. In  her  examination,  she  denied  having  any  accomplices, 
and  expired  on  the  rack  without  telling  even  her  name.  The 
sub-prefect  at  Abbeville,  the  once  famous  Andre  Dumont,  was 


M-2  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

ordered  to  disseminate  a  report  that  she  was  shut  up,  as  insam- 
in  a  mad  House. 

In  the  strict  search  made  by  the  police  in  the  house  occupied 
by  her,  no  papers,  or  any  indications  were  discovered,  that  in- 
volved other  persons,  or  disclosed  who  she  was,  or  vi!:».t  induced 
her  to  attempt  such  a  rash  action.  Before  the  secret  tribunal, 
she  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  that  being  convinced  of  Buona- 
parte's being  one  of  the  greatest  criminals  that  ever  breathed  up- 
on the  earth,  she  took  upon  nerself  the  office  of  a  volunteer  exe- 
cutioner, having,  with  every  other  good  or  loyal  person,  a  right  to 
punish  him  whom  the  law  could  not,  or  dared  not  reach."  W'u.n 
however,  some  repairs  were  made  in  the  house  at  Abbeville,  by  a 
new  tenant,  a  bundle  of  papers  were  found,  which  proved,  that 
a  Mr.  Ermquonville,  and  about  thirty  otner  individuals,  many  of 
whom  were  the  late  new  comers  there,  had  for  six  months  been 
watching  an  opportunity  to  seise  Buonaparte,  in  his  journeys  be- 
tween Abbeville  and  Montreuil,  and  to  carry  him  to  some  part 
of  the  coast,  where  a  vessel  was  ready  to  sail  for  England  with 
him.  Had  he,  however,  made  resistance,  he  would  have  been, 
shot  in  France,  and  his  assassins  might  nave  saved  themselves 
in  the  vessel. 

The  numerous  escort  that  always,  since  he  was  an  emperor, 
accompanied  him,  and  particularly  his  concealment  of  the  days 
of  lib  journeys,  prevented  the  execution  of  this  plot ;  and  Mad- 
ame Encore,  therefore,  took  upon  her  to  sacrifice  herself  for  what 
she  thought  the  welfare  of  her  country.  How  Duroc  suspected 
or  discovered  her  intent,  is  not  known  :  some  say,  that  an  anony- 
mous letter  informed  him  of  it,  while  others  assert,  that  in  throw- 
ing herself  at  Buonaparte's  feet,  this  prefect  observed  the  steel 
through  the  sleeve  of  her  muslin  gown.  Most  of  her  associates 
were  secretly  executed  ;  some,  however,  were  carried  to  Bou- 
logne, and  shot  at  the  head  of  the  army  of  England,  as  English 
spies. 

LETTER  XXXIV. 

Paris )  August^   1805 

MY    LORD, 

AFTER  the  discovery  of  Charlotte  Encore's  attempt,  Buona- 
parte, who  hitherto  had  flattered  himself  that  he  possessed  the 
good  wishes,  if  not  the  affection,  of  his  female  subjects,  mack  u 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  143 

regulation,  according  to  which  no  women,  who  have  not  previ- 
ously given  in  their  names  to  the  prefects  of  his  palaces,  and  ob- 
tained previous  permission,  can  approach  his  person,  or  throw 
themselves  at  his  feet,  without  incurring  his  displeasure,  and  even 
arrest.  Of  this  imperial  decree,  ladies,  both  of  the  capital,  and  /-• 
of  the  provinces,  when  he  travels,  are  officially  informed.  Not- 
withstanding this  precaution,  he  was  a  second  time,  last  spring, 
at  Ly6ns,near  falling  the  victim  of  the  veQgeance  or  malice  of  a 
female. 

In  his  journey  to  be  crowned  King  of  Italy,  he  occupied  his 
uncle's  episcopal  palace  at  Lyons,  during  the  forty-eight  hours 
lie  remained  there.  Most  of  the  persons  of  both  sexes,  ccrcpos  • 
ing  the  household  of  cardinal  Fesch,  were  from  his  own  country, 
Corsica ;  among  these  was  one  of  the  name  of  Pauline  Riotti, 
who  inspected  the  economy  of  the  kitchens.  It  is  Buonaparte's 
custom  to  take  a  dish  of  chocolate  in  the  forenoon,  which  she,  on 
the  morning  of  his  departure,  against  her  custom,  but  under  pre- 
tence of  knowing  the  taste  of  the  family,  desired  to  prepare.-  One 
of  the  cooks  observed  that  she  mixed  with  it  something  from  her 
pocket,  but  without  saying  a  word  to  her  that  indicated  suspi- 
cion, he  warned  Buonaparte,  in  a  note  delivered  to  a  page,  to  be 
upon  his  guard.  When  the  chamberlain  carried  in  the  choco- 
late, Napoleone  ordered  the  person  who  had  prepared  it  to  be 
brought  before  him.  This  being  told  Pauline,  she  fainted  away, 
after  having  first  drank  the  remaining  contents  of  the  chocolate- 
pot.  Her  convulsions  soon  indicated  that  she  was  poisoned,  ana, 
notwithstanding  the  endeavours  of  Buonaparte's  physician,  Cor- 
visart,  she  expired  within  an  hour,  protesting  that  her  crime  was 
an  act  of  revenge  against  Napoleone,  who  had  seduced  her  when 
young,  under  a  promise  of  marriage  ;  but  who,  since  his  eleva- 
tion had  not  only  neglected  her,  but  reduced  her  to  despair,  by 
refusing  an  honest  support  for  herself  and  her  child,  sufficient  to 
preserve  her  from  the  degradation  of  servitude.  Cardinal  Fesch 
received  a  severe  reprimand  for  admitting  amon^  his  domestics 
individuals  with  whose  former  lives  he  was  not  better  acquainted  j 
and  the  same  day  he  dismissed  every  Corsican  in  his  service, 
The  cook  was,  with  the  reward  of  a  pension,  made  a  member  of 
the  legion  of  honour,  and  it  was  given  out  by  Corvisart  that  Pau- 
line died  insane- 


144  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Within  three  weeks  after  this  occurrence,  Buonaparte  v, 
Milan,  again  exposed  to  an  imminent  danger.    According  to  his 
commands,  the  vigilance  of  the  police  had  been  very  strict,  and 
even  severe.    All  strangers  who  could  not  give  the  most  satis- 
factory account  of  themselves,  had  cither  been  sent  out  of  the 
country,  or  were  imprisoned.    He  never  went  out  but  strongly 
attended,   and  during  his  audiences  the  most  trusty  officers  al- 
ways surrounded  him ;  these  precautions  increased  in  propor- 
tion as  the  day  of  his  coronation  approached.    On  the  morning 
of  that  day,  about  nine  o'clock,  when  lull-dressed  in  his  imperial 
and  royal  robes,  and  all  the  grand  officers  of  state  by  his  side,  a 
pap^r  was  delivered  to  him  by  his  chamberlain  Talleyrand,  a  ne- 
phew of  the  minister.    The  instant  he  had  read  it,  he  flew  i; 
the  arms  of  Berthier,  exclaiming,  4<  My  friend,  I  am  betrayed  : 
are  you  among  the  number  of  conspirators  ?  Jourdan,  Lasnes> 
jMortier,  Bessieres,  St.  Cyr,  are  you  also  forsaking  your  friend 
and  benefactor  ?"  They  all  instantly  encompassed  him,  begging 
that  he  would  calm  himself  ;  that  they  were  all  what  they  ahvav: 
had  been,  dutiful  and  faithful   subjects.    "  But  read  this  papt" 
from  my  prefect  Sulmatoiis  ;  he  says  that  if  I  move  a  step  I  may 
cease  to  live,  as  the  assassins  are  near  me,  as  well  as  before  me." 
The  commander  of  his  guard  then  entered  with  fifty  grena- 
diers, their  bayonets  fixed,  bringing  with  them  a  prisoner,  who 
pointed  out  four  individuals  not  fur  from  Buonaparte's  person,    J 
two  of  whom  were  Italian  officers,  of  the  royal  Italian  guard,  and    ; 
two  were  dresstd  in   Swiss  uniforms.     They  were   all  imme- 
diately seized,  and  in  their  boots  were  found  three  daggers.    One- 
of  those  in  Swiss  regimentals  exclaimed,  before  he  was  taken, 
"  Tremble,  tyrant  of  my  country  !  Thousands  of  the  descendants 
of  Wihium  Tell  have,  with  me,  sworn  your  destruction.    You 
escape  this  day  ;  but  the  just  vengeance  of  outraged   humamtv 
follows  you  like  your  shade.    Depend  upon  it,  an  untimely  end  is 
irremediably  reserved  for  you."    So  saying,  he  pierced  his  own 
heart,  and  fell  a  corpse  inio  the  arms  of  the  grenadiers,  who  came 
to  arrest  him. 

This  incident  suspended  the  procession  to  the  cathedral  for  an 
hour,  when  Berthier  announced  that  the  conspirators  were  punish- 
ed, Buonapurte  evinced  on  this  occasion  the  same  absence  of 
mind  and  of  courage  as  on  the  9th  of  November,  1799,  when 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  us 

Arena  and  other  deputies  drew  their  daggers  against  him  at  St. 
Cloud.  As  this  scene  did  not  redound  much  to  the  honour  of  the 
Emperor  and  King,  all  mention  of  the  conspiracy  was  severely 
prohibited,  and  the  deputations,  ready  to  congratulate  him  on  his 
escape,  were  dispersed  to  attend  their  other  duties. 

The  conspirators  are  stated  to  have  been  four  young  men, 
who  had  lost  their  parents  and  fortunes  by  the  revolutions  effect- 
ed by  Buonaparte  in  Italy  and  Switzerland,  and  who  had  sworn 
fidelity  to  each  other,  and  to  avenge  their  individual  wrongs,  with 
the  injuries  of  their  countries  at  the  same  time.  They  were  all 
prepared  and  resigned  to  die,  expecting  to  be  cut  to  pieces  the 
moment  Buonaparte  fell  by  their  hands;  but  one  of  the  Italians, 
rather  superstitious,  had,  before  he  went  to  the  drawing-room, 
confessed,  and  received  absolution  from  a  priest,  whom  he  knew 
to  be  an  enemy  of  Buonaparte  :  but  the  priest,  in  hope  of  reward, 
disclosed  the  conspiracy  to  the  master  of  the  ceremonies,  Salma- 
toris.  The  three  surviving  conspirators  are  said  to  have  been 
literally  torn  to  pieces  by  the  engines  of  torture,  and  the  priest 
was  shot  for  having  given  absolution  to  an  assassin,  and  for  hav- 
ing concealed  his  knowledge  of  the  plot  an  hour  after  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  it.  Even  Salmatoris  had  some  difficulty  to  avoid 
being  disgraced,  for  having  written  a  terrifying  note,  which  had 
exposed  the  Emperor's  weakness,  and  shown  that  his  life  was 
dearer  to  him  at  the  head  of  empires  than  when  only  at  the  head 
of  armies. 

My  narrative  of  this  event  I  have  From  an  officer  present., 
whose  veracity  I  can  guarantee.  He  also  informed  me  that,  in 
consequence  of  it,  all  the  officers  of  the  Swiss  brigades  in  the 
French  service,  that  were  quartered  or  encamped  in  Italy,  were 
to  the  number  of  near  fifty  dismissed  at  once.  Of  the  Italian 
guards,  every  officer  who  was  known  to  have  suffered  any  losses 
by  the  new  order  of  things  in  his  country  was  ordered  to  resign, 
if  he  would  not  enter  into  the  regiments  of  the  line. 

Whatever  the  police  agents  did  to  prevent  it,  and  in  spite  of 
some  unjust  and  cruel  chastisement,  Buonaparte  continued,  du- 
ring his  stay  in  Italy,  an  object  of  ridicule  in  conversation  as 
well  as  in  pamphlets  and  caricatures.  One  of  these  represented 
him  in  the  ragged  garb  of  a  sans-culotte,  pale  and  trembling,  on 
his  knees,  with  bewildered  looks,  and  his  hair  standing  ppright 


146  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  TH£ 

on  his  head,  like  pointed  horns,  tearing  the  map  of  the  world  ttJ 
pieces,  and  to  save  his  life,  offering  each  of  his  generals  a  slice, 
who  in  return  regarded  him  with  looks  of  contempt,  mixed  with 
pity. 

I  have  just  heard  of  a  new  plot,  or  rather  a  league,  against 
.Buonaparte's  ambition.  At  its  head  the  generals  Jourdan,  Mac- 
domild,  Le  Courbe  and  Uessolles  are  placed,  though  many  less 
victorious  generals  and  officers,  civil  as  well  as  military,  are  re- 
ported to  be  its  members.  Their  object  is  not  to  remove  or  dis- 
place Buonaparte  as  an  Emperor  of  the  French  ;  on  the  contra- 
ry, they  offer  their  lives  to  strengthen  his  authority,  and  to  resist 
his  enemies  ;  but  they  ask  and  advise  him  to  renounce  for  him- 
self, for  his  relations,  and  for  France,  all  possessions  on  the  Italian 
side  of  the  Alps,  as  the  only  means  to  establish  a  permanent 
peace,  and  to  avoid  a  war  with  other  states,  whose  safety  is  en- 
dangered by  our  great  encroachments.  A  mutinous  kind  of  ad- 
dress to  this  effect  has  been  sent  to  the  camp  of  Boulogne,  and 
to  all  other  encampments  of  our  troops,  that  those  generals  and 
other  military  persons  there,  who  chose,  might  both  see  the  ob- 
ject and  the  intent  of  the  associates.  It  is  reported  that  Buona- 
parte ordered  it  to  be  burnt  by  the  hands  of  the  common  execu- 
tioner at  Boulogne  ;  that  sixteen  officers  there,  who  had  subscrib- 
ed their  names  in  approbation  of  the  address  were  broken,  and 
dismissed  with  disgrace  ;  that  Jourdan  is  deprived  of  command 
ill  Italy,  and  ordered  to  render  an  account  of  his  conduct  to  the 
emperor.  Desolles  is  also  said  to  be  dismissed,  and  with  Mac- 
donald,  Le  Courbe,  and  eighty-four  others,  his  Majesty's  sub- 
jects, whose  names  appeared  under  the  remonstrance,  or  peti- 
tion, (as  some  call  it)  exiled  to  different  departments  of  this  coun- 
try, where  they  are  to  expect  their  sovereign's  farther  determi- 
nation, and  in  the  mean  time  remain  under  the  inspection  and 
responsibility  of  his  constituted  authorities  and  commissaries  of 
police. 

As  it  is  as  dangerous  to  inquire  as  to  converse  on  this  and 
other  subjects,  which  the  mysterious  policy  of  our  government 
condemns  to  sil*nce  or  oblivion,  I  have  not  been  able  to  gather 
any  more  or  better  information  concerning  this  league,  or  uncon- 
stitutional opposition  to  the  executive  power ;  but  as  I  am  inti- 
inate  with  one  of  the  actors,  should  he  have  an  opportunity,  he 
-Will  certainly  write  to  me  at  full  length,  and  be  very  explicit- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,         u? 

LETTER  XXXV. 

Paris,  dugust,  1805, 


LORD 


I  BELIEVE  I  have  before  remarked  that,  under  the  govern- 
ment of  Buonaparte,  causes  relatively  the  most  insignificant,  have 
frequently  produced  effects  of  the  greatest  consequence.  A  ca* 
pricious  or  whimsical  character,  swaying  with  unlimited  power, 
is  certainly  the  most  dangerous  guardian  of  the  prerogatives  of 
sovereignty,  as  well  as  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people, 
That  Buonaparte  is  as  vain  and  fickle  as  a  coquette,  as  obstinate 
as  a  mule,  and  equally  audacious  and  unrelenting,  every  one, 
who  has  witnessed  his  actions,  or  meditated  on  his  transactions, 
must  be  convinced.  The  least  opposition  irritates  his  pride,  and 
he  determines  and  commands  in  a  moment  of  impatience  or  vi- 
vacity what  may  cause  the  misery  of  millions  for  ages,  and  per- 
haps his  own  repentance  for  years. 

When  Buonaparte  was  officially  informed  by  his  ambassador 
at  Vienna,  the  young  La  Rochefoucault,  that  the  emperor  of  Ger- 
many declined  being  one  of  his  grand  officers  of  the  legion  of  ho- 
nour, he  flew  into  a  rage,  and  used  against  this  prince  the  most 
gross,  vulgar,  and  unbecoming  language.  I  have  heard  it  said, 
that  he  went  so  far  as  to  say,  "  Well,  Francis  II.  is  tired  of  reign- 
ing. I  hope  to  have  strength  enough  to  carry  a  third  crown.  He 
who  dares  refuse  to  be  and  continue  my  equal,  shall  soon  as  a 
vassal  think  himself  honoured  with  the  regard,  which  as  a  mas- 
ter I  may  condescend,  from  compassion,  to  bestow  on  hinu" 
Though  forty-eight  hours  had  elapsed  after  this  furious  sally, 
before  he  met  with  the  Austrian  ambassador,  count  Cobentzel, 
his  passion  was  still  so  furious  that,  from  his  grossness  and  vio- 
lence, all  the  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps  trembled  both  for 
this  their  respectable  member,  and  for  the  honour  of  our  nation 
thus  represented. 

When  the  diplomatic  audience  was  over,  he  said  to  Talley- 
rand in  a  commanding  and  harsh  tone  of  voice,  in  the  presence 
of  all  his  aides-de-camp  and  generals,  "  Write  this  afternoon,  by 
an  extraordinary  courier,  to  my  minister  at  Genoa,  Salicttti,  to 
prepare  the  Doge  and  the  people  for  the  immediate  incorpora- 
tion of  tlj£  Ligurian  Republic  with  my  empire.  Should  Austria 


148  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

dare  to  murmur,  I  shall,  within  three  months,  also  incorporate 
the  ci-devant  Republic  of  Venice,  with  my  kingdom  of  Italy  I" 
*<  But — but— Sire  !"  uttered  the  Minister,  trembling,  "  There 
exists  no  but,  and  I  will  listen  to  no  but,"  interrupted  his  Ma- 
jesty— "  Obey  my  orders  without  further  discussions.  Should 
Austria  dare  to  arm,  I  shall,  before  next  Christmas,  make  Vien- 
na the  head-quarters  of  a  fiftieth  military  division.  In  an  hour, 
I  expect  you  with  the  dispatches  ready  far  Salicetti." 

This  Salicetti  is  a  Corsican  of  a  respectable  family,  born  at- 
Bastia,  in  1758,  and  it  was  he,  who,  during  the  siege  of  Toulon, 
in  1793,  introduced  his  countryman,  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  his 
present  sovereign,  to  the  acquaintance  of  Barras  ;  an  occurrence 
which  has  since  produced  consequences  so  terribly  notorious. 

Before  the  Revolution,  an  advocate  of  the  superior  council  of 
Corsica,  he  was  elected  a  member  to  the  first  National  Assem- 
bly, where,  on  the  30th  November,  1789,  he  pressed  the  decree 
which  declared  the  island  of  Corsica  an  integral  part  of  the 
French  monarchy.  In  1792,  he  was  sent  by  his  fellow-citizens 
us  a  deputy  to  the  National  Convention,  where  he  joined  the  ter- 
rorist faction,  and  voted  for  the  death  of  his  King.  In  May,  1793, 
he  was  in  Corsica,  and  violently  opposed  the  partisans  of  general 
Paoli.  Obliged,  to  save  himself,  to  make  his  escape  in  August 
from  that  island,  he  joined  the  army  of  general  Carteaux,  then 
marching  against  the  Marseilles  insurgents,  whence  he  was  sent 
by  the  National  Convention  with  Barras,  Gasparm,  Robespierre 
the  younger,  and  Ricrod,  as  a  representative  of  the  people  to  the 
army  before  Toulon,  where,  as  well  as  at  Marseilles,  he  shared  in 
all  the  atrocities  committed  by  his  colleagues  and  Buonaparte  ; 
for  which,  after  the  death  of  the  Robespierres,  he  was  arrested 
with  him  as  a  terrorist. 

He  had  not  known  Buonaparte  much  in  Corsica,  but  finding 
him  and  his  family  in  great  distress,  with  all  the  other  Corsican 
refugees,  and  observing  his  adroitness  as  a  captain  of  artillery,  he 
recommended  him  to  Barras,  and  upon  their  representation  to 
the  committee  of  Public  Safety,  he  was  promoted  to  a  chef  dc 
brigade^  or  colonel.  In  1796,  when  Barras  gave  Buonaparte  the 
command  of  the  army  of  Italy,  Salicetti  was  appointed  a  com- 
missary of  government  to  the  same  army,  and  in  that  capacity  be- 
haved with  the  greatest  insolence  towards  all  the  princes  of  T 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  143 

and  most  so,  towards  the  Duke  of  Modena, \vith  whom  he  and  Buo- 
naparte signed  a  treaty  of  neutrality,  for  which  they  received  a 
large  sum  in  ready  money  ;  but  shortly  afterwards  the  duchy  was 
again  invaded,  and  an  attempt  made  to  surprise  and  seize  the 
duke.  In  1797,  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Five 
Hundred,  where  he  always  continued  a  supporter  of  violent 
measures. 

When,  in  1799,  his  former  protege,  Buonaparte,  was  pro- 
claimed a  First  Consul,  Salicetti  desired  to  be  placed  in  the 
Conservative  Senate  ;  but  his  familiarity  displeased  Napoleone, 
who  made  him  first  a  commercial  agent,  and  afterwards  a  mi- 
nister to  the  Ligurian  Republic,  so  as  to  keep  him  at  a  distance. 
During  his  several  missions,  he  has  amassed  a  fortune,  calculat- 
ed, at  the  lowest, at  six  millions  of  livres  (250,000/f.) 

The  order  Salicetti  received  to  prepare  the  incorporation  of 
Genoa  with  France,  would  not,  without  the  presence  of  cur 
troops,  have  been  very  easy  to  execute,  particularly  as  he,  six 
months  before,  had  prevailed  on  the  Doge  and  the  senate,  to  re- 
sign all  sovereignty  to  Lucien  Buonaparte,  under  the  title  of  a 
grand  duke  of  Genoa. 

The  cause  of  Napolcone's  change  of  opinion,  with  regard  to 
his  brother  Lucien  was,  that  the  latter  would  not  separate  from 
a  wife  he  loved;  but  preferred  domestic  happiness  to  external 
splendour,  frequently  accompanied  with  internal,  misery.  So 
that  this  act  of  incorporation  of  the  Ligurian  Republic,  in  fact, 
originated,  notwithstanding  thegrcJat  and  deep  calculations  of  our 
profound  politicians,  and  political  schemers,  in  nothing  else,  but 
in  the  keeping  of  a  wife,  and  in  the  refusal  of  a  riband. 

That  corruption,  seduction,  and  menaces  seconded  the  ill* 
Uiftiies  and  bayonets,  which  convinced  the  Ligurian  government 
of  the  honour  and  advantage  of  becoming  subjects  of  Buonaparte, 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt ;  but  that  the  Doge,  Jerome  Durazzo, 
and  the  senators  Morchio,  Maglione,  Travega,  Maghella,  Rog- 
gieri,  Taddei,  Balby,  and  Langlade,  sold  the  independence  of 
their  country  for  ten  millions  of  livres  (430,000/.)  though  it  has 
been  positively  asserted,  I  can  hardly  believe  ;  and  indeed  monejr 
was  as  little  necessary,  as  resistance  would  have  been  unavailing  >: 
all.  the  forts  and  strong  positions  being  in  the  occupation  of  our 

o  .2 


150  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

troops.  A  general  officer,  present  when  the  Doge  of  Genoa,  at 
the  head  of  the  Ligurian  deputation,  offered  Buonaparte  then 
homage  at  Milan,  and  exchanged  liberty  for  bondage,  assured 
ine  that  this  ci-devant  chief  magistrate  spoke  with  a  faultering 
voice,  and  with  tears  in  his  eyes  ;  and  that  indignation  was  read 
on  the  countenance  of  every  member  of  the  deputation,  thus 
forced  to  prostitute  their  rights  as  citizens,  and  to  vilify  their 
sentiments  as  patriots. 

When  Salicetti,  with  his  secretary  Milhaud,  had  arranged 
this  honourable  affair,  they  set  out  from  Genoa,  to  announce  to 
Buonaparte,  at  Milan,  their  success.  Not  above  a  league  from 
the  former  city,  their  carriage  was  stopped,  their  persons  strip- 
ped, and  their  papers  and  effects  seized  by  a  gang  called,  in  the 
country,  the  gang  of  PATRIOTIC  ROBBERS,  commanded  by  Mu- 
lieno.  This  chief  is  a  descendant  of  a  good  Genoese  family,  pre- 
scribed by  France,  and  the  men  under  him  are  all  above  the 
common  class  of  people.  They  never  commit  any  murders, 
nor  do  they  rob  any  but  Frenchmen,  or  Italians,  known  to  be  ad* 
herents  of  the  French  party.  Their  spoils  they  distribute  among 
those  of  their  countrymen,  who,  like  themselves,  have  suffered 
from  the  revolutions  in  Italy,  within  these  last  nine  years.  They 
usually  send  the  amount  destined  to  relieve  these  persons,  to  the 
curates  of  the  several  parishes,  signifying  in  what  manner  it  is 
to  be  employed.  Their  conduct  has  procured  them  many  friends 
among  the  low  and  the  poor,  and  though  frequently  pursued  by 
our  gens-d'armes)  they  have  hitherto  always  escaped.  The  pa- 
pers captured  by  them  on  this  occasion,  from  Salicetti,  are  said 
to  be  of  a  most  curious  nature,  and  throw  great  light  on  Buona- 
parte's future  views  on  Italy.  The  original  act  of  consent  of  the 
Ligurian  government,  to  the  incorporation  with  France,  was 
also  in  this  number.  It  is  reported  that  they  were  deposited 
with  the  Austrian  minister  at  Genoa,  who  found  means  to  for- 
ward them  to  his  court ;  and  it  is  supposed  that  their  contents 
did  not  a  little  hasten  the  present  movements  of  the  emperor  of 
Germany. 

Another  gang,  known  under  the  appellation  of  PATRIOTIC 
AVENGERS,  also  desolates  the  Ligurian  Republic.  They  never 
rob,  but  always  murder  those  whom  they  consider  as  enemies 
of  their  country.  Many  of  our  officers,  and  even  our  sentries  on 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  134. 

duty,  have  been  wounded  or  killed  by  them  ;  and  after  dark, 
therefore,  no  Frenchman  dares  walk  out  unattended.  Their 
chief  is  supposed  to  be  a  ci-devant  abbe  Sagati,  considered  a  po* 
lilical  as  well  as  religious  fanatic.  In  consequence  of  the  deeds 
of  thsse  patriotic  avengers,  Buonaparte's  first  act  as  a  sovereign 
of  Liguiia,  was  the  establishment  of  special  military  commissions, 
and  a  law,  prohibiting,  under  pain  of  death,  every  person  from  car- 
rying arms,  who  could  not  show  a  written  permission  of  our  com- 
missary of  police.  Robbers  and  assassins  are,  unfortunately, 
common  to  all  nations,  and  all  people  of  all  ages  ;  but  those  of 
the  above  description  are  only  the  production  and  progeny  of  re- 
volutionary and  troublesome  times.  They  pride  themselves,  in- 
btead  of  violating  the  laws,  on  supplying  their  inefficacy,  and 
counteracting  their  partiality. 


LETTER    XXXVI. 

Paris,  September,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

BUONAPARTE  is  now  knight  of  more  royal  orders,  than 
any  sovereign  in  Europe,  and  were  he  to  put  them  on  all  at. 
once,  their  ribands  would  form  stuff  enough  for  a  light  summer 
coat,  of  as  many  different  colours  as  the  rainbow.  The  kings  of 
Spain,  of  Naples,  of  Prussia,  of  Portugal  and  of  Etruria,  have 
admitted  him  a  knight-companion,  as  well  as  the  electors  of  Ba- 
varia, Hesse,  and  Baden,  and  the  Pope  of  Rome.  In  return,  he 
has  appointed  these  princes  his  grand  officers  of  HIS  Legion  of 
Honour,  the  highest  rank  of  his  newly  instituted  Imperial  order. 
It  is  even  said,  that  some  of  the  sovereigns  have  been  honoured 
by  him  with  the  grand  star  and  broad  riband  of  the  order  of  HIS 
Iron  Crown  of  his  kingdom  of  Italy. 

Before  Napoleone's  departure  for  Milan,  last  spring,  Talley- 
rand intimated  to  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic 
corps  here,  that  their  presence  would  be  agreeable  to  the  empe- 
ror of  the  French,  at  his  coronation  at  Milan,  as  king  of  Italy.— • 
In  the  preceding  summer,  a  similar  hint  or  order,  had  been  given 
by  him,  for  a  diplomatic  trip  to  Aix-la-Chapeile,  and  all  their 
excellencies  set  a  packing  instantly  ;  but  some  legitimate  sove* 


)32  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

reigns,  having  since  discovered,  that  it  was  indecent  for  their  re- 
presentatives to  be  crowding  the  suite  of  an  insolently  and  proud- 
ly travelling  usurper,  under  different  pretences,  declined  the  Ao- 
nour  of  the  invitation  and  journey  to  Italy.  It  would,  besides, 
have  been  pleasant  enough,  to  have  witnessed  the  ambassadors 
of  Austria  and  Prussia,  whose  sovereigns  had  not  acknowledged 
Buonaparte's  right  to  his  assumed  title  of  king  of  Italy,  indirect- 
ly approving  it,  by  figuring  at  the  solemnity  which  inaugurated. 
him  as  such.  Of  this  inconsistency  and  impropriety,  Talleyrand 
was  well  aware  ;  but  audacity  on  one  side,  and  endurance  and 
submifcfcion  on  the  other,  had  so  often  disregarded  these  consider- 
ations before, that  he  saw  no  indelicacy  or  impertinence  in  the  pro- 
posal. His  master  hud,  however,  the  gratification  to  see  at  his 
levee,  and  in  his  wife's  drawing-room,  the  ambassadors  of  Spain, 
Naples,  Portugal,  and  Bavaria,  who  laid  at  the  imperial  and  royal 
feet,  the  Order-decorations  of  their  own  princes,  to  the  no  little 
entertainment  of  his  imperial  and  royal  majesty,  and  to  the  great 
edincution  of  his  dutiful  subjects,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps. 

The  expenses  of  Buonaparte's  journey  to  Milan,  and  his  coro- 
nation there,  (including  also  those  of  his  attendants,  from  France) 
amounted  to  no  lessa  sum  than  fifteen  millions  of  livres,  (625,000/.) 
of  which,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  livres,  (6,000/.)  were 
laid  out  in  fireworks  ;  double  that  sum  in  decorations  of  the  roy- 
al palace  and  the  cathedral ;  and  three  millions  of  livres  ( 12.5,000/.) 
in  presents  to  different  generals,  grand  officers,  deputations,  Sec. 
The  poor  also  shared  his  bounty  ;  medals  to  the  value  of  fifty 
thousand  livres,  (2,100/.)  were  thrown  out  among  them  on  the 
day  of  the  ceremony,  besides  an  equal  sum  given  by  Madame 
Napoltone  to  the  hospitals  and  orphan  houses.  These  last  have 
a  kind  of  hereditary  or  family  claim  on  the  purse  of  our  sove- 
reign ;  their  parents  were  the  victims  of  the  Emperor's  first  step- 
towards  glory  and  grandeur. 

Another  three  millions  of  livres  were  expended  for  the  march 
of  troop*  from  France,  to  form  pleasure  camps  in  Italy  ;  and 
four  millions  more  were  requisite  for  the  forming  and  support  of 
these  encampments  during  two  months ;  and  the  Emperor  dis- 
tributed among  the  officers  and  men  composing  them,  two  mil- 
lions worth  of  rings,  watches,  snuff-boxes,  portraits  set  with  dia- 


COURT  'OF  ST.  CLOUD.  152 

monds,  stars,  and  other  trinkets,  as  evidences  of  his  Majesty's 
satisfaction  with  their  behaviour,  presence,  and  performances. 

These  troops  were  under  the  command  of  Buonaparte's  field- 
marshal,  Jourdan,  a  general  often  mentioned  in  the  military 
annals  of  our  revolutionary  war.  During  the  latter  part  of  the 
American  war,  he  served  under  general  Rochambeau,  as  a  com- 
mon soldier,  and  obtained  in  1783,  after  the  peace,  his  discharge. 
He  then  turned  pedlar,  in  which  situation  the  revolution  found 
him.  He  had  also  married  for  her  fortune,  a  lame  daughter  of  a 
tailor,  who  brought  him  ^fortune  of  two  thousand  livres,  (84/.) 
from  whom  he  has  since  been  divorced,  leaving  her  to  shift  for 
herself  as  she  can,  in  a  small  milliner's  shop  at  Limoges,  where 
her  husband  was  born  in  1763. 

Jourdan  was  among  the  first  members  and  pillars  of  the  Jaco- 
bin club,  organized  in  his  native  town,  which  procured  him  rapid 
promotion  in  the  national  guards,  of  whom,  in  1792,  he  was  al- 
ready a  colonel.  His  known  love  of  liberty  and  equality  induced 
the  committee  of!  Public  Safety  in  1793,  to  appoint  him  to  the 
chief  command  of  the  armies  of  Ardennes  and  of  the  North,  in- 
stead of  Lamarche  and  Houchard.  On  the  17th  of  October,  the 
same  year,  he  gained  the  victory  of  Wattignies,  which  obliged 
the  united  forces  of  Austria,  Prussia,  and  Germany,  to  raise  the 
siege  of  Maubege.  The  jealous  republican  government,  in  re- 
ward, deposed  him,  and  appointed  Pichegru  his  successor,  which 
was  the  origin  of  that  enmity  and  malignity,  with  which  Jour- 
dan pursued  this  unfortunate  general,  even  to  his  grave.  He 
never  forgave  Pichegru  the  acceptance  of  a  command,  which  he 
could  not  decline  without  risking  his  life  ;  and  when  he  should 
have  avenged  his  disgrace  on  the  real  causes  of  it,  he  chose  to 
resent  it  on  him,  who,  like  himself,  was  merely  an  instrument, 
or  a  slave  in  the  hands,  and  under  the  whip  of  a  tyrannical 
power. 

After  the  imprisonment  of  general  Hoc-he,  in  March  1794, 
Jourdan  succeeded  him  as  chief  of  the  army  of  the  Moselle.  In 
June  he  joined,  with  thirty  thousand  men,  the  right  wing  of  the 
army  of  the  North,  forming  a  new  one  under  the  name  of  the 
army  of  the  Sambre  and  Meuse.  On  the  1 6th  of  the  same  month 
he  gained  a  complete  victory  over  the  prince  of  Cobourg,  who 
t;ied  to  raise  the  eiege  of  Charleroy.  This  battle,  which  v.'s.s 


J34  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

fought  near  Trasegnies,  is  nevertheless  commonly  called  the  bat- 
tle of  Fluries.  After  Charlercy  had  surrendered  on  the  25th, 
Jourdan  and  his  army  were  ordered  to  act  under  the  direction 
of  General  Pichegru,  who  had  drawn  the  plun  of  that  brilliant 
campaign.  Always  envious  of  this  general,  Jourdan  did  every 
thing  to  retard  his  progress;  and  at  last  intrigued  so  well  that 
the  army  .of  the  Sambre  and  the  Meuse  was  separated  from  that 
of  the  North'. 

With  the  former  of  these  armies,  Jourdan  pursued  the  re- 
treating confederates,  and  after  driving  them  from  different 
stands  and  positions,  he  repulsed  them  to  the  banks  of  the  Rhine, 
which  river  they  wero  obliged  to  pass.  Here  ended  his  successes 
this  year  ;  successes  that  were  not  obtained  without  great  loss 
en  our  side. 

Jourdan  began  the  campaigns  of  1795  and  1796  with  equal 
brilliancy,  and  ended  them  with  equal  disgrace.  After  penetrat- 
ing into  Germany  with  troops  as  numerous  as  well  disciplined, 
he  was  defeated  at  the  end  of  them  by  the  Archduke  Charles, 
and  retreated  always  with  such  precipitation,  and  in  such  confu- 
sion, that  it  looked  more  like  the  flight  of  a  disorderly  rabble 
than  the  retreat  of  regular  troops ;  and  had  not  Moreau,  in  1796, 
kept  the  enemy  in  awe,  feAV  of  Jourdan's  officers  or  men  would 
again  have  seen  France  ;  for  the  inhabitanis  of  tranconia  rose  on 
these  marauders,  and  cut  them  to  pieces,  wherever  they  could 
surprise  or  way-lay  them. 

In  1797,  as  a  member  of  the  council  of  Five  Hundred,  he 
headed  the  Jacobin  faction,  against  the  moderate  party,  of  which 
Pichegru  was  a  chief ;  and  he  had  the  cowardly  vengeance  of 
base  rivalry,  to  pride  himself  upon  having  procured  the  transpor- 
tation of  that  patriotic  general  to  Cayenne.  In  1799,  he  again  as- 
sumed the  command  of  the  army  of  Alsace  and  of  Switzerland  ; 
but  he  crossed  the  Rhine  and  penetrated  into  Suabia,  only  to  be 
again  routed  by  the  Archduke  Charles,  and  to  repass  this  river 
in  disorder.  Under  the  necessity  of  resigning  as  a  general  in 
chief,  he  returned  to  the  council  of  Five  Hundred,  more  violent 
than  ever,  and  provoked  there  the  most  oppressive  measures 
against  his  fellow -citizens.  Previous  to  the  revolution  effected  by 
Buonaparte  in  November  that  year,  he  had  entered  with  Gar- 
reau  and  Santerre  into  a  conspiracy,  the  object  of  which  was  ta 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUDr  1SS 

restore  the  reign  of  terror,  and  to  prevent  which  Buon  aparte  said 
he  made  those  changes  which  placed  him  at  the  head  of  govern- 
ment. It  was  even  printed  in  the  papers  of  that  period,  which 
Buonaparte  on  the  10th  of  November  addressed  to  the  then  de- 
puty of  May  enne,  Prevost :  "  If  the  plot  entered  into  by  Jourdan 
and  others,  and  of  which  they  have  not  blushed  to  propose  tome 
the  execution,  had  not  been  defeated,  they  would  have  surround- 
ed the  place  of  your  sitting,  and,  to  crush  ail  future  opposition, 
ordered  a  number  of  deputies  to  be  massacred.  That  done,  they 
were  to  establish  the  sanguinary  despotism  of  the  reign  of  terror*" 
But  whether  such  was  Jcurdan's  project,  or  whether  it  was 
merely  given  out  to  be  such  by  the  consular  faction,  to  extenuate 
their  own  usurpation,  he. certainly  had  connected  himself  with 
the  most  guilty  and  contemptible  of  the  former  terrorists,  and 
drew  upon  himself  by  such  conduct,  the  hatred  and  blarne  even 
of  those  whose  opinion  had  long  been  suspended  on  his  account. 

General  Jourdan  was  among  those  terrorists,  whom  the  con- 
sular government  condemned  to  transportation  ;  but  after  several 
interviews  with  Buonaparte,  he  was  not  only  pardoned,  but  made 
a  counsellor  of  state  of  the  military  section- ;  and  afterwards,  in 
1801,  an  administrator-general  of  Piedmont,  where  he  was  re* 
placed  by  general  Menou  in  1803,  being  himself  entrusted  with 
the  command  in  Italy.  This  place  he  has  preserved  until  last 
month,  when  he  was  ordered  to  resign  to  Massena,  with  whom 
he  had  a  quarrel,  and  would  have  fought  him  in  a  duel,  had  not 
the  viceroy  Eugenius  tie  Beauharnois  put  him  under  arrest  and 
ordered  him  back  hither,  where  he  is  daily  expected.  If  Masse- 
na's  report  to  Buonaparte  be  true,  the  army  of  Italy  was  very  far 
from  being  as  orderly  and  numerous  as  Jourdan's  assertions 
would  hare  induced  us  to  believe.  But  this  accusation  of  a  rival 
must  be  listened  to  with  caution ;  because  should  Massena  meet 
with  a  repulse,  he  v  ill  no  doubt  make  use  of  it  as  an  apology  ; 
and  should  he  be  victorious,  hold  it  out  as  a  claim  for  more  ho- 
nour and  praise. 

The  same  doubts  which  still  continue  of  Jourdan's  political 
opinions  remain  also  with  regard  to  his  military  capacity.  But 
the  unanimous  declaration  of  those  who  have  served  under  his 
orders  as  a  general  must  silence  both  his  blind  admirers  and  un- 
just slanderers.  They  all  allow  him  some  military  ability  :  he 


|5b  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

combines  and  prepares  in  the  cabinet  a  plan  of  defence  and  at* 
tack  with  method  and  intelligence  ;  but  be  does  not  possess  the 
quick  coufi-cTcril)  and  that  promptitude  which  perceives,  and  rec- 
tifies accordingly,  an  error  on  the  field  of  battle.  If  on  the  day 
of  action  some  accident  or  some  manoeuvre  occurs  which  was 
not  foreseen  by  him,  his  dull  and  heavy  genius  does  not  enable 
him  to  alter  instantly  his  dispositions,  or  to  remedy  errors, 
misfortunes,  or  improvidence.  This  kind  of  talent,  and  this  kind 
of  absence  of  talent,  explain  equally  the  causes  of  his  advantages, 
as  well  a*  the  origin  of  his  frequent  disasters.  Nobody  denies 
him  courage,  but,  with  most  of  our  other  republican  generals,  he 
has  never  been  careful  of  the  lives  of  the  troops  under  him. 
I  have  heard  an  officer  of  superior  talents  and  rank  assert,  in  the 
presence  of  Carnot,  that  the  number  of  wounded  and  killed  under 
Jcurdan,  when  victorious,  frequently  surpassed  the  number  of 
enemies  he  had  defeated.  I  fear  it  is  too  true  that  we  are  as  much, 
if  not  more,  indebted  for  our  successes  to  the  superior  number 
as  to  the  superior  valour  of  our  troops. 

Jourdan  is,  with  regard  to  fortune,  one  of  our  poorest  republi- 
can generals,  who  have  headed  armies.  He  has  not,  during  all 
his  campaigns,  collected  a  capital  of  more  than  eight  millions  of 
Jivres,  (333,000/.)  a  mere  trifle  compared  to  the  fifty  millions  of 
M:\sstna,  the  sixty  millions  of  Le  Cierc,  the  forty.jmillions  of 
Murat,  and  the  thirty-six  millions  of  Angereau  ;  not  to  mention 
the  hundred  millions  of  Buonaparte.  It  is  also  true  that  Jourdan 
is  a  gambler  and  a  debauchee,  fond  of  cards,  dice,  and  women  ; 
and  that  in  Italy,  except  two  hours  in  twenty-four  allotted  to  bu- 
siness, he  passed  the  remainder  of  his  time  either  at  the  gam- 
bling-tables, or  in  the  boudoirs  of  his  seraglio — I  say  seraglio; 
because  he  kept  in  the  extensive  house  joining  his  palace,  as  go- 
vernor and  commander,  ten  women  ;  three  French,  three  Italian, 
two  German,  and  two  Irish  or  English  girls.  He  supported  them 
all  in  style ;  but  they  were  his  slaves,  and  he  was  their  sultan, 
whose  official  mutes  (his  aides-de-camp)  both  watched  them,  and, 
if  necessary,  chastised  them. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  157 

LETTER  XXXVII. 

Paris,  September,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

I  CAN  truly  defy  the  work!  to  produce  a  corps  of  such  ahete 
rogeneous  composition  as  our  Conservative  Senate,  when  I  ex  - 
cept  the  members  composing  Buonaparte's  Legion  of  Honour. 
Some  of  our  senators  have  been  tailors,  apothecaries,  merchants, 
ohymists,  quacks,  physicians,  barbers,  bankers,  soldiers,  drum- 
mers, dukes,  shopkeepers,  mountebanks,  abbes,  generals,  savans, 
friars,  ambassadors,  counsellors,  or  presidents  of  parliament, 
admirals,  barristers,  bishops,  sailors,  attorneys,  authors,  barons, 
spies,  painters,  professors,  ministers,  sans-culottes,  atheists,  stone- 
masons, robbers,  mathematicians,  philosophers,  regicides,  and  a 
long  el  cetera.  Any  person  reading  through  the  official  list  of 
ihe  members  of  the  senate,  and  who  is  acquainted  with  their 
former  situations  in  life,  may  be  convinced  of  its  truth.  Should 
he  even  be  ignorant  of  them,  let  him  but  inquire,  with  the  list  in 
liis  hand,  in  any  of  our  fashionable  or  political  circles,  he  will  meet: 
with  but  few  persons  who  are  not  able  or  willing  to  remove  his 
doubts,  or  to  gratify  his  curiosity.  There  are  not  many  of  them 
whom  it  is  possible  to  elevate,  but  those  are  still  more  numerous 
whom  it  is  impossible  to  degrade.  Their  past  lives,  vices,  errors 
or  crimes,  have  settled  their  characters  and  reputation  ;  and  they 
must  live  and  die  in  statu  guo,  either  as  fools,  or  as  knaves,  and 
perhaps,  as  both. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  they  are  all  criminals,  or  all  equal- 
ly criminal,  if  insurrection  against  lawful  authority,  and  obedience 
to  usurped  tyranny,  are  not  to  be  considered  as  crimes  ;  but  there 
are  few  indeed  who  can  lay  their  hands  on  their  bosoms,  and 
say,  -uitam  reficndere  vero.  Some  of  them,  as  a  Lagrange,  Ber- 
thollet,  Chaptal,  La  Place,  Francois  de  Neuf  Chateau,  Tronchet, 
Monge,  Lacepede,  and  Bougainville,  are  certainly  men  of  talents ; 
but  others,  as  a  Porcher,  Resnier,  Vi'mar,  Aliber,  Pere,  Sers, 
Vernier,  Vien,  Villetard,  Tascher,  Rigal,  Buchiocchi,  Bevier, 
Beauharnois,  de  Luynes  (a  ci-devant  duke,  known  under  the 
name  of  Le  Gros  Cochon)  nature  never  destined  but  to  figure 
among  those  half  idiots  and  half  imbeciles,  who  are,  as  it  were., 
intermedia!  between  the  brute  and  human  creation , 

p 


158  SECRET  HISTORY  OF 

Sieyes,  Cabanis,  Garran  Coulon,  Lecouteul,  Canteleu,  L> 
Laroche,  Volney,  Gregoire,  Emmery,  Joucourt,  Boissy  d'An- 
glas,  Fouche,  and  Roederer,  form  another  class.  Some  of  them 
regicides,  others  assassins  and  plunderers,  but  all  intriguers, 
whose  machinations  date  from  the  beginning  of  the  revolution. 
They  are  all  men  of  parts,  of  more  or  less  knowledge,  and  of 
great  presumption.  As  to  their  morality,  it  is  on  a  level  with 
their  religion  and  loyalty.  They  betrayed  their  king,  and  had 
denied  their  God  already  in  1789. 

After  these  come  some  others,  who  again  have  neither  talents 
to  boast  of,  nor  crimes  of  which  they  have  to  be  ashamed.  They 
have  but  little  pretension  to  genius,  none  to  consistency,  and  their 
honesty  equals  their  capacity.  They  joined  our  political  revolu- 
tion, as  they  might  have  done  a  religious  procession.  It  was  at 
that  time  a  fashion  ;  and  they  applauded  our  revolutionary  inno- 
vation, as  they  would  have  done  the  introduction  of  a  new  opera, 
of  a  new  tragedy,  of  a  new  comedy,  or  of  a  new  farce.  To  this 
fraternity  appertain  a  ci-devant  Count  de-Stult-Tracy,  Dubois, 
Dubay,  Kellerman,  Lambrechts,  Lemcrcier,  Pieviue,  Le  Pel- 
ley,  Clement  de  Ris,  Peregeaux,  Berthelemy,  Vaubois,  Perignon, 
d'Agier,  Abrial,  de  Belloy,  Delannoy,  Aboville,  and  St.  Martin 
La  Motte. 

Such  are  the  characteristics  of  men,  whose  senatus  consuhum 
bestows  an  Emperor  on  France,  a  king  on  Italy,  makes  of  prin- 
cipalities departments  of  a  republic,  and  transforms  republics  in- 
to provinces  or  principalities.  To  show  the  absurdly  fickle,  and 
ridiculously  absurd  appellations  of  our  shamefully  perverted  in- 
stitutions, this  senate  was  called  the  Conservative  Senate  ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  was  to  preserve  the  republican  consular  constitution  in 
its  integrity,  both  against  the  encroachments  of  the  executive  and 
legislative  power,  both  against  the  manoeuvres  of  the  factious,  the 
plots  of  royalists  or  monarchists,  and  the  clamours  of  a  populace 
of  levellers. — But  during  the  five  years  that  these  honest  wise- 
acres have  been  preserving,  every  thing  has  peiished — thejre- 
public,  the  consuls,  free  discussions,  free  elections,  the  political 
liberty,  and  the  liberty  of  the  press — all — all  are  found  no  where, 
but  in  old,  useless,  and  rejected  codes.  They  have,  however, 
in  a  truly  patriotic  manner,  taken  care  of  their  own  dear  selves.. 
Their  salaries  are  more  than  doubled  since  1799 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUL).  159 

muck  senators,  mock  prxtors,  mock  quarters,  other 
libertatis  are  revived,  so  a's  to  make  the  loss  of  the  reality 
so  much  the  more  galling.  We  have  also  two  curious  commis- 
sions ;  one  called  "  the  Senatorial  Commission  of  Personal  Li- 
berty," and  the  other  "  the  Senatorial  Commission  of  the  Liber- 
ty of  the  Press. — The  imprisonment  without  cause,  and  trans- 
porL;tion  without  trial,  of  thousands  of  persons  of  both  sexes, 
weekly,  show  the  grand  advantages  which  arise  from  the  former 
of  these  commissions  ;  and  the  contents  of  our  new  books,  and 
daily  prints,  evince  the  utility  and  liberality  of  the  latter. 

But  from  the  past  conduct  of  these  our  senators,  members  of 
these  commissions,  one  may  easily  conclude  what  is  to  be  ex- 
pected in  future  from  their  justice  and  patriotism.  Lenoin  La- 
roc.he,  at  the  head  of  the  one,  was  formerly  an  advocate  of  some 
practice,  but  attended  more  to  politics  than  to  the  business  of  his 
clients,  and  was,  therefore,  at  the  end  of  the  session  of  the  first 
assembly,  of  which  he  was  amember.  forced,  for  subsistence,  to  be- 
come the  ec.itor  of  an  insignificant  jcurnal.— -Here  he  preached 
licentiousness  under  the  name  of  liberty,  and  the  Agrarian  law  in 
.recommending  equality.  A  prudent  courtier  of  all  systems  iu 
fa&hion,  and  of  all  factions  in  power,  he  escaped  proscription, 
though  not  accusation  of  having  shared  in  the  national  robberies. 
A  short  time,  in  the  summer  of  1 797,  after  the  dismissal  of  Co- 
chon,  he  acted  as  a  minister  of  police,  and  in  1798  the  jacobins 
elected  him  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Ancients,  where  he, 
with  other  deputies,  sold  himself  to  Buonaparte,  and  was  in  re- 
turn rewarded  with  a  place  in  the  senate.  Under  monarchy,  he 
was  a  republican,  and  under  a  republic,  he  extolled  monarchical 
institutions.  He  wished  to  be  singular,  and  to  be  rich.  Among 
so  many  shocking  originals,  however,  he  was  not  distinguished  ; 
and  among  so  many  philosophical  marauders,  he  had  no  oppor- 
tunity to  pillage  above  two  millions  of  livres  (84,000/.)  This 
friend  of  liberty  is  now  one  of  the  most  despotic  senators  ;  and 
this  lover  of  equality  never  answers  when  spoken  to,  if  not  ad- 
dressed as  '  his  Excellency,'  or  Monseigneur.' 

Boissy  d'Anglas,  another  member  of  this  commission,  was, 
before  the  revolution,  a  steward  to  Louis  XVIII.  when  Mon- 
sieur; an'd,  in  1789,  was  chosen  a  deputy  of  the  first  assembly, 
where  he  joined  the  factious,  and  In  his  speeches  and  writings 


160  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

defended  all  the  enormities  that  dishonoured  the  beginning1  as 
Well  as  the  end  of  the  revolution.  A  member  afterwards  of  the 
National  Convention,  he  was  sent  in  mission  to  Lyons,  where, 
Instead  of  heaiing  the  wounds  of  the  inhabitants,  he  inflicted  new 
ones.  When,  in  March  15th,  1796,  in  the  Council  of  Five  Hun- 
dred, he  pronounced  the  oath  of  hatred  to  royalty,  he  added,  that 
this  oath  was  in  his  heart,  otherwise  no  power  upon  earth  could 
have  forced  him  to  take  it  ;  aud  he  is  now  a  sworn  subject  of  Na- 
pokone  the  First !  He  pronounced  the  panegyric  of  Robespierre, 
and  the  apotheosis  of  Marat.  "  The  soul,"  said  he,  "  was  moved 
and  elevated,  in  hearing  Robespierre  speak  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing with  philosophical  ideas,  embellished  by  eloquence  ;"  and 
he  signed  the  removal  of  the  ashes  of  Marat  to  the  temple  con- 
secrated to  humanity  / — In  September,  1797,  he  was,  as  aroyat- 
•*st)  condemned  to  transportation  by  the  Directory  ;  but,  in  1799, 
Buonaparte  recalled  him,  made  him  first  a  tribune,  and  after- 
wards a  senator. 

Boissy  d'Anglas,  though  an  apologist  of  robbers  and  assassins, 
has  neither  murdered  nor  plundered  :  but,  though  he  has  not  en- 
riched himself,  he  has  assisted  in  ruining  all  his  former  protec- 
tors, benefactors,  and  friends. 

Sers,  a  third  member  of  this  commission,  was,  before  the  re- 
volution, a  bankrupt  merchant  at  Bordeaux,  but  in  1791,  a  mu- 
nicipal officer  of  the  same  city,  and  sent  as  a  deputy  to  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  where  he  attempted  to  rise  from  the  clouds  that 
encompassed  his  heavy  genius,  by  a  motion  for  pulling  down  all 
statues  of  kings  throughout  France.  He  seconded  another  mo- 
tion of  Buonaparte's  prefect,  J^un  Dsbrie,  to  decree  a  corps  of 
tyrannicides,  destined  to  murder  all  emperors,  kings,  and  prin- 
ces. At  the  club  of  the  jacobins  at  Bordeaux  he  prided  him- 
self on  having  caused  the  arrest  and  death  of  three  hundred  aris- 
tocrats ;  and  boasted  that  he  never  went  out  without  a  dagger, 
to  dispatch,  by  a  summary  justice ,  those  who  had  escaped  the 
laws.  After  meeting  with  well-merited  contempt,  and  living  for 
some  time  in  the  greatest  obscurity,  by  a  handsome  present  to 
Madame  Buonaparte,  in  1799,  he  obtained  the  favour  of  Napo- 
leone,  who  dragged  him  forward  to  be  placed  among  other  or- 
naments of  his  senate.  Sers  has  just  cunning  enough  to  be  ta- 
ken for  a  man  of  sense,  when  with  fools ;  when  with  men  of 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  Ul 

sense,  he  reassivmes  the  place  allotted  him  by  nature.  Without 
education,  as  well  as  without  parts,  he  for  a  longtime  confounded 
brutal  scurrility  with  oratory,  and  thought  himself  eloquent, 
•  when  he  was  only  insolent  or  impertinent.  His  ideas  of  liberty 
are  such,  that,  when  a  municipal  officer,  he  signed  a  mandate 
of  arrest  against  sixty-four  individuals  of  both  sexes,  who  where 
at  a  ball,  because  they  had  refused  to  invite  to  it  one  of  his  nieces. 

Abrial,  Emmery,  Vernier,  and  Lemercicr,  are  the  other 
four  members  of  that  commission  ;  of  these,  two  are  old  intri- 
guers, tv/o  are'  nullities,  and  all  four  are  slaves. 

Of  the  seven  members  of  the  senatorial  commission,  for  pre- 
serving the  liberty  of  the  press,  Carat  and  Rcederer  are  the 
principal.  The  former  is  a  pedant,  while  pretending  to  be  a 
philosopher :  and  he  signed  the  sentence  of  his  good  king's 
death,  while  declaring  himself  a  royalist.  A  mere  valet  to  Ro- 
bespierre, his  fawning  procured  him  opportunities  to  enrich 
himself  with  the  spoil  of  those  whom  his  calumnies  and  plots 
caused  to  be  massacred  or  guillotined.  When,  as  a  minister 
of  justice,  he  informed  Louis  XVI.  of  his  condemnation,  he  did 
it  with  such  an  affected  and  atrocious  indifference,  that  he  even 
shocked  his  accomplices,  whose  nature  had  not  much  of  tender- 
ness.— As  a  member  cf  the  first  assembly,  as  a  minister  under 
the  convention,  and  as  a  deputy  of  the  council  of  Five  Hundred, 
he  always  opposed  the  liberty  of  the  press.  "  The  laws,  you  say, 
•(exclaimed  he  in  the  council)  punish  libellers  ;  so  they  do  thieves 
and  house-breakers  ;  but  would  you,  therefore,  leave  your  doors 
unbolted  ?  Is  not  the  character,  the  honour,  and  the  tranquillity 
of  a  citizen,  preferable  to  his  treasures  ?  and,  by  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  you  leave  them  at  the  mercy  of  every  scribbler  who 
can  write  or  think.  The  wound  inflicted  may  heal,  but  the  scar 
will  always  remain.  Were  you,  therefore,  determined  to  decree 
the  motion  for  this  dangerous  and  impolitic  liberty,  I  make  this 
amendment,  that  conviction  of  hewing  written  a  libel  carries  'with 
it  cajnlal  jiunishment,  and  that  a  label  be  fastened  on  the  breast 
of  the  libdler,  when  carried  to  execution,  with  this  inscription, 
a,  social  murderer,  or  a  murderer  of  characters  .'" 

Rcederer  has  belonged  to  all  religious  or  anti-religious  sects,  and 
to  all  political  or  anti-social  factions,  these  last  twenty  years ;  but  af- 
ter approving,  applauding  and  serving  them,  he  has  deserted  them, 

p  2 


*6S  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

sold  them,  or  betrayed  them.  Before  the  revolution,  a  counsellor 
of  parliament  at  Metz,  he  was  a  spy  of  the  court  on  his  col 
leagues  ;  and  since  the  revolution  he  served  the  jacobins  as  a  spy- 
on  the  court.  Immoral,  and  unprincipled  to  the  highest  degree, 
/.;'«  profligacy  and  duplicity  are  only  equalled  by  his  perversity 
and  cruelty.  It  was  he  who,  on  the  10th  August,  1792,  betrayed 
the  king  and  the  royal  family  into  the  hands  of  their  assassins,  and 
who  himself  made  a  merit  of  this  infamous  act.  After  being- 
repulsed  by  all,  even  by  the  most  sanguinary  of  our  parties  and 
partisans,  by  a  Brissot,  a  Marat,  a  Robespierre,  a  Tallinn,  and  a 
Barras,  Buonaparte  adopted  him  first  as  a  counsellor  of  state, 
and  afterwards  as  a  senator.  His  own  and  only  daughter  died 
in  a  miscarriage,  the  consequence  of  an  incestuous  commerce 
with  her  unnatural  parent;  and  his  only  son  is  disinherited  by 
Turn  for  resenting  his  father's  baseness,  in  debauching  a  young 
girl  whom  the  son  had  engaged  to  marry. 

With  the  usual  consistency  of  my  revolutionary  countrymen, 
he  has,  at  one  period,  asserted  that  the  liberty  of  the  press  was 
necessary,  for  the  preservation  both  of  men  and  things,  for  the 
protection  of  governors,  as  well  as  of  the  governed,  and  that  it 
was  the  best  support  of  a  constitutional  government.  At  ano- 
ther time  he  wrote,  that,  as  it  was  impossible  to  fix  the  limits 
between  the  liberty  and  the  licentiousness  of  the  press,  the  latter 
destroyed  the  benefits  of  the  former ;  that  the  liberty  of  the  press 
was  only  useful  against  a  government  which  one  wished  to  over- 
turn, but  dangerous  to  a  government  which  one  wished  to  pre- 
serve. To  show  his  indifference  about  his  own  character,  as 
well  as  about  the  opinion  of  the  public,  these  opposite  declara- 
tions were  inserted  in  one  of  our  daily  papers,  and  both  were  sign- 
ed "  Roederer." 

In  1779,  he  was  indebted  above  one  million,  two  hundred 
thousand  livres  (5O,000/.)  and  he  now  possesses  national  proper- 
ty, purchased  for  seven  millions  of  livres  (292,OOO/.)  and  he 
avows  himself  to  be  worth  three  millions  more,  in  money,  placed 
in  our  public  funds.  He  often  says,  laughingly,  that  he  is  under 
great  obligations  to  Robespierre,  whose  guillotine  acquitted,  in 
»ne  day,  all  his  debts.  All  his  creditors,  after  being  denounced 
for  their  aristocracy -,  were  all  murdered  en  masse  by  this  instnr 
raent  of  death. 


COL  ItT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  163 

Of  ail  the  old  beaux  and  superannuated  libertines,  whose  com- 
pany I  have  had  the  misfortune  of  net  being  able  to  avoid,  Roe- 
derer  is  the  most  affected,  silly,  and  disgusting.  Kis  wrinkled 
face,  and  effeminate  and  childish  air  ;  his  assiduities  about  every 
woman  of  beauty  or  fashion  ;  his  confidence  in  his  own  merit, 
and  his  presumption  in  his  own  power,  wear  such  a  curious  con- 
trast, with  his  trembling  hands,  running  eyes,  and  enervated  per- 
son, that  I  have  frequently  been  ready  to  laugh  at  him  in 
his  face,  had  not  indignation  silenced  all  other  feeling.  A 
light  coloured  wig  covered  a  bald  head  ;  his  cheeks  and  eye- 
lids are  painted,  and  his  teeth  false  ;  and  I  Lave  seen  a  woman 
iV.ini  away  from  the  effect  of  his  breath  ;  notwithstanding  that 
he  infects,  with  his  musk  and  perfumes,  a  whole  house,  only 
;.is  presence.  When  in  the  ground  floor,  you  may  smell 

in  the  attic  story. 


"TER  XXXVIII. 

Paris,   September,   1805', 

M?    LORD, 

f  HE  reciprocal  jealousy  and  even  interest  of  Austria,  France 
and  Russia,  have  hitherto  prevented  the  tottering  Turkish  empire 
from  being  partitioned  like  Poland,  or  seized  like  Italy  ;  to  serve 
as  indemnities,  like  the  German  empire,  or  to  be  shared,  as  re- 
ward to  allies,  like  the  empire  of  Mysore. 

When  we  consider  the  anarchy  that  prevails  both  in  the  gov- 
ernment, and  among  the  subjects,  as  well  in  the  capital,  as  in 
the  provinces  of  the  Ottoman  Porte  ;  when  we  reflect  on  the 
mutiny  and  cowardice  of  its  armies  and  navy,  the  ignorance  and 
incapacity  of  its  officers,  and  military  and  naval  commanders,  it 
is  surprising  indeed,  as  I  have  heard  Talleyrand  often  declare, 
that  more  foreign  political  intrigues  should  be  carried  on  at  Con- 
stantinople alone,  than  in  all  other  capitals  of  Europe,  taken  to- 
gether. These  intrigues,  however,  instead  of  doing  honour  to 
the  sagacity  and  patriotism  of  the  members  of  the  Divan,  ex- 
pose only  their  corruption  and  imbecility  ;  and  instead  of  indi- 
cating a  dread  of  the  strength  of  the  Sublime  Sultan,  shows  a 
.  weakness,  of  which  the  gold  of  the  most  weal- 


164  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

thy,  and  the  craft  of  the  most  subtil,  by  turns  are  striving;  to 

profit. 

Beyond  a  doubt,  the  enmity  of  the  Ottoman  Porte  can  do  me.: 
:.,hchkf,  than  its  friendship  can  do  service.     Its  neutrality  is  ai- 
-.-.seful,    while  its  alliance  becomes  frequently  a  burthen, 
.;>port  of  no  advantage.     It  is,  therefore,  more  from  a 
•-  K-,7  of  preventing;  evils,  than  from  expectation  of  profit,  that  all 
other  powers  plot,  cabal  and  bribe.     The  map  of  the   Turkish 
empire,    explains  v/hat  may  be  thought  absurd  or   nugatory  in 
assertion. 

As  soon  as  war  with  Austria  was  resolved  on  by  the  Brissot 
fiiciicn,  in  1792,  emissaries  were  dispatched  to  Constantinople, 
to  engage  the  Divan  to  invade  the  provinces  of  Austria  and  Rus- 
sia ;  thereby  to  create  a  diversion  in  favour  of  this  country. — 
Our  ambassador  in  Turkey  at  that  time,  Count  de  Choiseuil 
Gouffier,  though  an  admirer  of  the  revolution,  was  not  a  repub- 
lican, and,  therefore,  secretly  counteracted,  Vnat  he  officially 
seemed  to  wish  to  effect.  The  Imperial  court  succeeded, 
therefore,  in  establishing  the  neutrality  of  the  Ottoman  Porte, 
but  Count  de  Choiseuil  was  proscribed  by  the  Convention.  As 
academician,  he  was,  however,  at  St.  Petersburg!!,  liberally  re- 
compensed, by  Catharine  II.  for  the  services  the  ambassador  had 
performed  at  Constantinople. 

In  May,  1798,  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  determined  to 
expedite  another  embassy  to  the  Grand  Seignior,  at  the  head  of 
wijch  was  the  famous  intriguer,  De  Semonviile  ;  whose  revo- 
lutionary diplomacy  had,  wldrin  three  years,  alarmed  the  courts 
of  Much  id,  Naples,  and  Turin,  as  well  as  the  republican  govern- 
ment of  Genoa.  His  career  towards  Turkey  was  stopped  in  the 
Grison  republic,  on  the  25th  of  July  following,  where  he,  with 
sixteen  others  of  his  suite,  was  arrested,  and  sent  prisoners, 
first  to  Milan,  and  afterwards  at  Mantua.  He  carried  with  him 
presents  of  immense  value,  which  were  all  seized  by  the  Aus- 
tri.ms.  Among  them  w^re  four  superb  coaches,  highly  fin- 
ished, varnished  and  gilt  ;  what  in  common  carriages  is  iron  or 
brass,  was  here  gold  or  silver  gilt.  Two  large  chests  were  fdled 
'with  stuff  of  gold  brocade,  India  gold  muslins  and  shawls,  and 
laces  of  very  great  value.  Eighty  thousand  louis-d'ors  (80,000/.) 
-in  ready  money  :  a  service  of  gold  plate  of  twenty  covers,  which 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  165 

formerly  belonged  to  the  kings  of  France  ;  two  small  boxes  full 
of  diamonds  and  brilliants,  the  intrinsic  worth  of  which  was  esti- 
mated at  48  millions  of  livres,  (2,000,000/.)  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  jewels;  among  others,  the  crown-diamond,  called  here,  the 
Regent's,  and  in  your  country,  the  Pitt  diamond,  fell,  with  other 
riches,  into  the  hands  of  the  captors.  Notwithstanding  this  loss, 
and  this  disappointment,  we  contrived  in  vain,  to  purchase  the 
hostility  of  the  Turks  against  our  enemies,  though  with  the  sa- 
crifice  of  no  less  a  sum  (according  to  the  report  of  St.  Just,  in 
1794-)  than  seventy  millions  of  livres  (3,000,000/.)  These  offi- 
cial statements,  prove  the  means,  which  our  so-often-extolled 
economical  and  moral  republican  governments  have  employed  in 
their  negotiations. 

After  the  invasion  of  Egypt,  in  time  of  peace,  by  Buonaparte, 
the  Sultan  became  at  last  convinced  of  the  sincerity  of  our  pro- 
fessions of  friendship,  which  he  returned  with  a  declaration  of 
war.  The  preliminaries  of  peace  with  your  country,  in  October, 
1801,  were,  however,  soon  followed  with  a  renewal  of  our  former 
friendly  intercourse  with  the  Ottoman  Porte.  The  voyage  of 
Sebastian!  into  Egypt  and  Syria,  in  the  autumn  of  1802,  showed 
that  our  tenderness  for  the  inhabitants  of  these  countries  had  not 
diminished  ;  and  that  we  soon  intended  to  confer  on  them,  new 
liugs  of  fraternity.  Your  pretensions  to  Malta  impeded  our 
prospects  in  the  East,  and  your  obstinacy  obliged  us  to  postpone 
our  so  well-planned  schemes  of  encroachment.  It  was  then  first, 
hat  Buonaparte  selected  for  his  representative  to  the  Grand 
Seignior,  General  Brune,  commonly  called  by  Moreau,  Mac- 
ionald,  and  other  competent  judges  of  military  merit,  an  in- 
'riguer  at  t/ie  head  of  armies,  and  a  warrior  in  time  ofpeacc^  when 
•:ca!ed  in  the  council-chamber. 

This  Brune  was,  before  the  revolution,  a  journeyman  printer, 
ind  married  to  a  washer-woman,  whose  industry  and  labour, 
\lone  prevented  him  from  starving,  for  he  was  as  vicious  as  idle. 
The  money  he  gained  when  he  chose  to  work,  was  generally 
>quandered  away  in  brothels,  among  prostitutes.  To  supply  his 
excesses,  he  had  even  recourse  to  dishonest  means,  and  was  shut 
ap  in  the  prison  of  Bicetere,  for  robbing  his  master  of  types  an$ 
>f  paper 


L'6G  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

In  the  beginning  of  the  revolution,  his.  very  crimes  made  Liiii 
an  acceptable  associate  of  Marat,  who,  with  the  money  advanced 
by  the  Orleans    faction,  bought  him  a  printing-office,  and   he 
printed  the  so  dreadfully  well-known  journal,    called  L'Amie  du 
Fcuhlc.     From  the  principles  of  this  atrocious  paper,  and  from 
those  of  his  sanguinary  patron,  he  formed  his  own  political  creed. 
He  distinguished  himself  frequently  at  the  clubs  of  the  Cordeliers, 
and  of  the  Jacobins  by  his  extravagant  motions,  and  by  provoking 
laws  of  proscription  against  a  wealth  he  did  not  possess,  and  against 
a  rank  he  would  have  dishonoured,  but  did  not  see  without  envy. 
On  the  30th  of  June,  1791,  he  said,  in  the  former  of  these  clubs, 
u  We  hear,  every  where,  complaints  of  poverty  ;  were  not  our 
eyes  so  often  disgusted  with  the  sight  of  unnatural  riches,  our 
hearts  would  not  so  often  be  shocked  at  the  unnatural  sufferings 
of  humanity.     The  blessings  of  our  revolution  will  never  be  felt 
by  the  world,  until  we  are  in   France  on  a  level,  with  regard  to 
rank  as  well  as  to  fortune.   I,  for  my  part,  know  too  well  the  dig- 
nity of  human  nature,  ever  to  bow  to  a  superior  ;  but,  brothers, 
and  friends,  it  is  not  enough  that  ~.v^  are  all  politically  equal  ,we 
must  also  be  all  equally  rich,  or  equally  poor — we  must  either  all 
strive  to  become  men  of  property,  or  reduce  men  of  property  to  be- 
come Sans-Culottes.       Believe  me,  the  aristocracy  of  property  is 
more  dangerous  than  the  aristocracy  of  prerogative  or  fanaticism, 
because  it  is  more  common.     Here  is  a  list  sent  to  UAmic  du 
Ptuple)   but  of   which  prudence  yet  prohibits  the  publication. 
It  contains  the  names  of  all  the  men  of  property  of  Paris,  and  of 
the  department  of  the  Seine,  the  amount  of  their  fortunes,  and  a 
proposal  how  to  reduce  and  divide  it  among  our  patriots.     Of  its 
great  utility,  in  the  moment  when  we  have  been  striking  our 
grand  blows,  nobody  dares  doubt  ;   I  therefore  move,  that  a  bro- 
therly letter  be  sent  to  every  society  of  our  brothers  and  friends, 
in  the  provinces,  inviting  each  of  them  to  compose  one  of  similar 
contents,  and  of  similar  tendency,  in  their  own  districts,  with 
what  remarks  they  think  proper  to  affix,  and  to  forward  them  to 
us,  to  be  deposited  in  the  mother  club,  after  taking  copies  of  them 
for  the  archives  of  their  own  society."    His  motion  was  decreed. 
Two  days  afterwards  he  again  ascended  the  tribune.     "  You 
approved,"    said   he,    "  of  what    measures    I    lately    proposed 
against  the  aristocracy  of  property  ;  I  will  now  tell  you  of  ano- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  167 

liier  aristocracy  which  we  must  also  crush — I  nrcan  that  of  reli- 
gion, and  of  the  clergy.  Their  supports  are  folly,  cowardice, 
and  ignorance.  All  priests  are  to  be  proscribed,  and  punished 
as  criminals,  and  despised  as  impostors  or  idiots  ;  and  all  altars 
must  be  reduced  to  dust,  as  unnecessary.  To  prepare  the  pub- 
lic mind  for  such  events,  we  must  enlighten  it ;  which  can  only 
be  done  by  disseminating  extracts  from  UAmie  du  Peupte^  and 
other  pJdlosophical  publications.  I  have  here  some  ballads  of  my 
own  composition,  which  have  been  sung  in  my  quarter  ;  where 
all  superstitious  persons  have  already  trembled,  and  all  fanatics 
are  raving.  If  you  think  proper,  I  will,  for  a  mere  trifle,  print' 
twenty  thousand  copies  of  them,  to  be  distributed  and  disseminat- 
ed all  over  France."  After  some  discvission,  the  treasurer  of 
the  club  was  ordered  to  advance  citizen  Brune  the  sum  required, 
and  the  secretary  to  transmit  the  ballads  to  the  fraternal  societies 
in  the  provinces. 

Brune  put  on  his  first  regimentals,  as  an  aid-de-camp,  to  ge- 
neral Santerre,  in  December,  1792,  after  having  given  proofs  of 
his  military  prowess,  the  preceding  September,  in  the  massacre  of 
the  prisoners  in  the  Abbey.  In  1793,  he  was  appointed  a  colonel 
in  the  revolutionary  army,  which,  during  the  rtign  of  terror,  laid 
waste  the  departments  of  the  Gironde  ;  where  he  was  often 
seen  commanding  his  corps,  with  a  human  head  fixed  on  his 
sword.  On  the  day  when  he  entered  Bourdeaux  with  his  troops 
a  newborn  child  occupied  the  same  place,  to  the  great  horror  of 
the  inhabitants.  During  this  brilliant  expedition,  he  laid  the 
first  foundation  of  his  present  fortune,  having  pillaged  them  in 
a  most  merciful  manner,  and  arrested,  or  shot,  every  suspected 
person,  who  could  not,  or  would  not,  exchange  property  for  life. 
On  his  return  to  Paris,  his  patriotism  was  recompenced  with  a 
commission  of  a  general  of  brigade.  On  the  death  of  Robespierre, 
he  was  arrested  as  a  terrorist,  but  after  some  months  imprison- 
ment, again  released. 

In  October,  1795,  he  assisted  Napolcone  Buonaparte,  in  the 
massacre  of  the  Parisians,  and  obtained  for  it,  fioni  the  director, 
Barras,  the  rank  of  a  general  of  division.  Though  occupying-,  in 
time  of  war,  such  a  high  military  rank,  he  h.nd  hitherto  never 
seen  o.n  enemy,  or  witnessed  v-  ^rnt. 


16S  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

After  Buonaparte  had  planned  the  invasion  and  pillage  of 
Switzerland,  Brune  was  charged  to  execute  this  unjust  outrage 
against  the  law.  of  nations.  His  capacity  to  intrigue,  procured  him 
this  distinction,  and  he  did  honour  to  the  choice  of  his  employ- 
ers,. You  have  no  doubt  read  that,  after  lulling  the  government 
of  Berne  into  security  by  repeated  proposals  of  accommodation, 
he  attacked  the  Swiss  and  Bernese  troops  during  a  truce,  and  ob- 
tained by  treachery,  successes  which  his  valour  did  not  promise 
him.  The  pillage,  robberies,  and  devastations  in  Helvetia,  added 
several  more  millions  to  his  previously  great  riches. 

It  was  after  his  campaign  in  Holland,  during  the  autumn  of 
» 799,  that  he  first  began  to  claim  some  military  glory.  He 
owed,  however,  his  successes  to  the  superior  number  of  his 
troops,  and  to  the  talents  of  the  generals  and  officers  serving  un- 
der him.  Being  made  a  counsellor  of  state  by  Buonaparte,  he 
was  entrusted  with  the  command  of  the  army  against  the  Chou  • 
ans.  Here,  again,  he  seduced  by  his  promises,  and  duped  by  his 
intrigues  ;  acted  infamously,  but  was  successful. 


LETTER  XXXIX. 

Paris,  September,  180: 

MY  LORD, 

THREE  months  before  Brune  set  out  on  his  embassy  to  Con- 
stantinople, Talleyrand  and  Fouche  were  collecting  together  all 
the  desperadoes  of  our  revolution,  and  all  the  Italian,  Corsican, 
Greek  and  Arabian  renegadoes  and  vagabonds  in  our  country, 
to  form  him  a  set  of  attendants  agreeable  to  the  real  object  of  his 
mission* 

You  know  too  much  of  our  national  character,  and  of  my  own 
veracity,  to  think  it  improbable,  whe*n  I  assure  you  that  most  oi 
our  great  men  in  place  are  as  vain  as  presumptuous,  and  that 
sometimes  vanity  and  presumption  get  the  better  of  their  dis- 
cretion and  prudence.  What  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  I  did  not 
hear  myself,  but  it  was  reported  to  me  by  a  female  friend,  as  esti- 
mable for  her  virtues  as  admired  for  her  accomplishments.  She 
is  often  honoured  with  invitations  to  Talleyrand's  familfor  parties. 
composed  chiefly  of  persons,  whose  fortunes  ui'e  independent  as 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  169 

their  principles ;  who,  though  not  approving  the  revolution,  nei- 
ther joined  its  opposers,  nor  opposed  its  adherents,  preferring 
tranquillity  and  obscurity  to  agitation  and  celebrity.  Their  num- 
ber is  not  much  above  half  a  dozen,  and  the  minister  calls  them 
the  only  honest  people  in  France,  with  whom  he  thinks  himself 
safe. 

When  it  was  reported  here  that  two  hundred  persons  of 
Brune's  suite  had  embarked  at  Marseilles,  and  eighty-four  at 
Genoa,  and  when  it  was  besides  known  that  near  fifty  individuals 
accompanied  him  in  his  outset,  this  unusual  occurrence  caused 
much  conversation  and  many  speculations  in  all  our  coteries  and 
fashionable  circles.  About  that  time  my  friend  dined  with  Tal- 
leyrand, and  by  chance  also  mentioned  this  grand  embassy,  ob- 
serving at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  too  much  honour  done  the 
Ottoman  Porte,  and  too  much  money  thrown  away  upon  splen- 
dour, to  honour  such  an  imbecile  and  tottering  government.  "  How 
people  talk,"  interrupted  Talleyrand,  "  about  what  they  do  not 
comprehend.  Generous  as  Buonaparte  is,  he  does  not  throw 
away  his  expenses  ;  perhaps  within  twelve  months  all  these  rene« 
gadoes,  or  adventurers,  whom  you  all  consider  as  valets  of 
Brune,  will  be  three-tailed  Pachas  or  Beys,  leading  friends  of 
liberty,  who  shall  have  gloriously  broken  their  fetters  as  slaves 
of  a  Selim,  to  become  the  subjects  of  a  Napoleone.  The  eastern 
empire  has  indeed  long  expired,  but  it  may  suddenly  be  revived." 
— "  Austria  and  Russia,"  replied  my  friend,  "  would  never  suffer 
it,  and  England  would  sooner  ruin  her  navy  and  exhaust  her  trea- 
sures than  permit  such  a  revolution." — "  So  they  have  tried  to 
do,"  retorted  Talleyrand,  "  to  bring  about  a  counter-revolution 
in  France.  But  though  only  a  moment  is  requisite  to  erect  the 
standard  of  revolt,  ages  often  are  necessary  to  conquer  and  seize 
it.  Turkey  has  long  been  ripe  for  a  revolution.  It  wanted  only 
chiefs  and  directors.  In  time  of  war,  ten  thousand  Frenchmen 
landed  in  the  Dardanelles,  would  be  masters  of  Constantinople, 
-and  perhaps  of  the  empire.  In  time  of  peace,  four  hundred  bold 
and  well-informed  men,  may  produce  the  same  effect. — Besides, 
with  some  temporary  cession  of  a  couple  of  provinces  to  each  of 
the  Imperial  courts,  and  with  the  temporary  present  of  an  island 
to  Great-Britain,  every  thing  may  be  settled  firo  te?nfiore,  and  a 
Buonaparte  be  jiermiltcd  to  reign  at  Constantinople*  as  a 
q 


'lh>  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Napoleone  does  at  Paris."  That  the  minister  made  use  of  this 
language,  I  can  take  upon  me  to  t.fFirm  ;  but  whether  purposely 
or  unintentionally,  whether  to  give  a  high  opinion  of  his  plans,  or 
to  impose  upon  his  company,  I  will  not  and  cannot  assert. 

On  the  subject  of  this  numerous  suite  of  Brune,  Markoff  is 
said  to  have  obtained  several  conferences  with  Talleyrand,  and 
several  audiences  of  Buonaparte,  in  which  representations,  as 
just  as  energetic,  were  made  ;  which,  however,  did  not  alter  the 
intent  of  our  government,  or  increase  the  favour  of  the  Russian 
ambassador  at  the  court  of  St.  Cloud.  But  it  proved  that  our 
schemes  of  subversion  are  suspected,  and  that  our  agents  of  over- 
throw would  be  watched,  and  their  manoeuvres  inspected. 

Count  Italinski,  the  Russian  ambassador  to  the  Ottoman  Porte, 
is  one  of  those  noblemen,  who  unite  rank  and  information,  talents 
and  modesty,  honour  and  patriotism,  wealth  and  liberality.  His 
personal  character,  and  his  individual  virtues,  made  him  there- 
fore more  esteemed  and  revered  by  the  members  of  the  Bivan, 
than  the  high  station  he  occupied,  and  the  powerful  prince  he 
represented  made  him  feared  or  respected.  His  warnings  had 
created  prejudices  agc.inst  Brune,  which  he  found  difficult  to  re- 
move. To  revenge  himself  in  1  is  own  way,  our  ambassador  in- 
serted several  paragraphs  in  the  Moniteur,  and  in  our  other  pa- 
pers, in  which  count  Itulinski  was  libelled,  and  his  transactions 
or  views  calumniated. 

After  his  first  audience  with  the  Grand  Signior,  Brune  com- 
plained bitterly  of  not  having  learned  the  Turkish  language,  and 
of  being  under  the  necessity  therefore  of  Using  interpreters,  to 
whom  he  ascribed  the  renewed  obstacles  he  encountered  in  every 
step  he  took,  while  his  hotel  was  continually  surrounded  with 
spies,  and  the  persons  of  his  suite  followed  like  criminals  every 
where,  when  they  went  out*  Even  the  valuable  presents  he  car- 
ried with  him,  amounting  in  value  to  twenty^four  millions  of  li- 
vres,  (lOOjOOO/.)  were  but  indifferently  received,  the  acceptors 
seeming  to  suspect  the  object  and  the  honesty  of  the  donor. 

In  proportion  as  our  politics  became  embroiled  with  those  of 
Russia,  the  post  of  Brune  became  of  more  importance ;  but  the 
obstacles  thrown  in  his  way  augmented  daily,  and  he  was  forced 
to  avow  that  Russia  and  England  had  greater  influence  and  more 
Gredit  than  the  French  Republic  and  its  chief.  When  Buonapartr 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  171 

/ 

was  proclaimed  an  Emperor  of  the  French,  Brune  expected  that 
fcis  ac  -IK  lit  as  sac- u  at  C  oiiotantinopie,  would  be  a  mere 

matter  oi  coin:*;,  and  announced  officially  on  the  day  iie  present- 
ed a  copy  oi  ;  is  new  credentials.  Here  again  i.e  was  disappoint- 
ed, and  therefore  demanded  his  recall  from  a  place,  where  there 
was  no  probability,  under  the  present  circumstances,  of  either  ex- 
citin;;-  t  e  'v!'..;  ;cts  to  revolt,  of  deluding  the  prince  into  submis- 
sion, or  seducing  ninisters,  wiio  in  pocketing  his  bribes  forgot 
for  what  they  were  i^iven. 

It  was  then  that  Buonaparte  sent  Joubert  with  a  letter,  in  his 
own  hand-writing,  to  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  Grand 
Signipr  himself.  This  Joubert  is  a  foundling,  and  was,  from  hk 
youth  destined,  and  educated  to  be  one  of  the  secret  agents  of 
our  secret  diplomacy.  You  may  already,  perhaps,  have  heard 
that  our  government  selects  yearly  a  number  of  young  found- 
lings, or  orphans,  whom  it  causes  to  be  brought  up  in  foreign 
countries  at  its  expense,  so  as  to  learn  the  language  as  natives 
of  the  nation,  where,  when  grown  up,  they  are  chiefly  to  be  em- 
ployed. Joubert  had  been  educated  under  the  inspection  of  cur 
consuls  at  Smyrna,  and  when  he  assumes  the  dress xf  a  Turk, 
from  his  accent  and  manners,  even  the  musbuimen  mistake  him 
for  one  of  their  creed,  and  of  their  country.  He  was  introduced 
to  Buonaparte  in  1797,  and  accomp  inied  him  to  Egypt,  where 
his  services  were  of  the  greatest  utility  to  our  army.  He  is 
no'.v  a  kind  of  under- secretary  in  the  office  of  our  secret  diplo- 
macy, and  a  member  of  our  Legion  of  Honour. — Should  ever 
Joseph  Buonaparte  be  an  Emperor  or  Sultan  of  the  East,  Jcu- 
bert  will  certainly  be  his  Grand  Vizier.  There  is  another  Jou- 
bertj  (with  whom  you  must  not  confound  him)  who  was  also  a 
kind  of  Dragoman  at  Constantinople  some  years  ago  ;  and  who 
is  still  somewhere  on  a  secret  mission,  in  the  East-Indies. 

Joubert's  arrival  at  Constantinople,  excited  both  curiosity 
among  the  people,  and  suspicion  among  the  ministry.  There  is 
no  example  in  the  Ottoman  history,  of  a  chief  of  a  Christian  na- 
tion having  written  to  the  Sultan  by  a  private  messenger,,  or  of 
his  highness  having  condescended  to  receive  the  letter  from  the 
bearer,  and  to  converse  with  him.  The  Grand  Vizier  demanded 
a  copy  of  Buonaparte's  letter,  before  an  audience  could  be  grant- 
ed. This  was  refused  by  Joubert ;  and  as  Brune  threatened  to 


172  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

quit  the  capital  of  Turkey,  if  any  longer  delay  was  experienced; 
the  letter  was  delivered  in  a  garden  near  Constantinople,  where 
the  Sultan  met  Buonaparte's  agent  as  if  by  chance,  who  it  seems, 
lost  all  courage  and  presence  of  mind,  and  did  not  utter  four 
words,  to  which  no  answer  was  given. 

This  impertinent  intrigue,  and  this  novel  diplomacy,  therefore, 
totally  miscarried,  to  the  great  shame,  and  greater  disappoint- 
ment of  the  schemers  and  contrivers.  I  must,  however,  do 
Talleyrand  the  justice  to  say,  that  he  never  approved  of  it,  arxl 
even  foretold  the  issue  to  his  intimate  friends.  It  was  entirely 
the  whim  and  invention  of  Buonaparte  himself,  upon  a  sugges- 
tion of  Brune  ;  who  was  far  from  being  so  well  acquainted  with 
the  spirit  and  policy  of  the  Divan,  as  he  had  been  with  the  genius 
and  plots  of  Jacobinism.  Not  rebuked,  however,  Jcubert  was 
ordered  away  a  second  time,  with  a  second  letter,  and  after  an 
absence  of  four  months,  returned  again  as  he  went,  less  satisfied 
with  the  second,  than  with  his  first  journey. 

In  these  trips  to  Turkey,  he  had  always  for  travelling  com- 
panions some  of  our  emissaries  to  Austria,  Hungaria,  and  in 
particular  to  Servia,  where  the  insurgents  were  assisted  by  our 
councils,  and  even  guided  by  some  of  our  officers.  The  princi- 
pal aid-de-camp  of  Czerni  George,  the  Servian  chieftain,  is  one  St. 
Martin,  formerly  a  captain  in  our  artillery,  afterwards  an  officer  of 
engineers  in  the  Russian  service,  and  finally  a  volunteer  in  the  ar- 
my ofConde.  He  and  three  other  officers  of  artillery  were,  under 
fictitious  names,  sent  by  our  government,  during  the  spring  last 
year,  to  the  camp  of  the  insurgents. — They  pretended  to  be  of  the 
Grecian  religion,  and  formerly  Russian  officers,  and  were  imme- 
diately employed.  St.  Martin  has  gained  great  influence  over 
Czerni  George,  and  directs  both  his  political  councils  and  milita- 
ry operations.  Besides  the  individuals  left  behind  by  Joubert,  it 
is  said  that  upwards  of  one  hundred  persons  of  Brune's  suite 
have  been  ordered  for  the  same  destination.  You  see  how  great 
the  activity  of  our  government  is,  and  that  nothing  is  thought 
unworthy  of  its  vigilance  or  its  machinations.  In  the  stall'  ol 
Paswan  Oglou,  six  of  my  countrymen  have  been  serving  ever 
since  1796,  always  in  the  pay  of  our  government. 

It  was  much  both  against  the  inclination  and  interest  of  our 
Emperor,  that  his  ambassador  at  Constantinople  should  leave  the 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  173 

Reid  of  battle  thereto  the  representatives  of  Russia,  Austria,  and 
England.  But  his  dignity  was  at  stake.  After  many  threats  to 
deprive  the  Sult?.n  of  the  honour  of  his  presence,  and  even  after 
setting-  out  once  for  some  leagues  on  his  return,  Brune  observ- 
ing that  these  marches  and  countermarches  excited  more 
mirth  than  terror,  at  last  fixed  a  day,  when  finally  either  Buona- 
parte must  be  acknowledged  by  the  Divan  as  an  Emperor  of  the 
French,  or  his  departure  would  take  place.  On  that  day  he  in- 
deed began  his  retreat,  but,  under  different  pretexts  he  again 
stopped,  sent  couriers  to  his  secretaries,  waited  for  their  return, 
and  sent  new  couriers  again — -but  all  in  vain,  the  Divan  conti- 
nued refractory. 

At  his  first  audience  after  his  return,  the  reception  Buona- 
parte gave  him  was  not  very  cordial.  He  demanded  active  em- 
ployment, in  case  of  a  continental  war  either  in  Italy  or  in  Ger- 
many ;  but  received  neither.  When  our  army  of  England  was 
already  on  its  march  towards  the  Rhine,  and  Buonaparte  return- 
ed here,  Brune  was  ordered  to  take  command  on  the  coast,  and 
to  organize  there  an  army  of  observation  ;  destined  to  succour 
Holland  in  case  of  an  invasion,  or  to  invade  England,  should  a 
favourable  occasion  present  itself.  The  fact  is,  he  is  charged  to 
intrigue  rather  than  to  fight  ;  and  were  Napoleone  able  to  force 
upon  Austria  another  peace  of  Luneville,  Brune  will  probably  Be 
the  plenipotentiary  that  would  ask  your  acceptance  of  another 
peace  of  Amiens.  It  is  here  a  general  belief  that  his  present 
command  signifies  another  pacific  overture  from  Buonaparte  be- 
fore your  parliament  meet,  or  at  least  before  the  new  year.  Re- 
member that  our  hero  is  more  to  be  dreaded  as  a  Philip  than  as 
an  Alexander. 

General  Brune  has  bought  landed  property  for  nine  millions 
of  livres,  (375,000/.)  and  has,  in  different  funds,  placed  ready-mo- 
ney to  the  same  amount.  His  own  and  his  wife's  diamonds  are 
valued  by  hi  in  at  three  millions  ;  and  when  he  has  any  parties 
to  dinner,  he  exhibits  th^n  with  great  complaisance  as  presents 
forced  upon  him  during  his  campaign  in  Switzerland  and  Hol- 
land for  the  protection  he  gave  the  inhabitants.  He  is  now  so 
vain  of  his  wealth  and  proud  of  his  rank,  that  he  not  only  disre- 
gards all  former  acquaintances,  but  denies  his  own  brothers  and 
sisters,  telling  them  frankly  that  the  Field  Marshal  Brune  can 

2 


174  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

have  no  shoe-maker  for  a  brother,  nor  a  sister  married  to  a  chand- 
ler ;  that  he  knows  of  no  parents,  'and  of  no  relatives,  being  the 
maker  of  his  own  fortune  and  of  what  he  is  ;  that  his  children 
will  look  no  farther  back  for  ancestry  than  their  father.  One  of 
his  first  cousins,  a  postilion,  who  insisted  rather  obstinately  on 
his  family  alliance,  was  recommended  by  Brune  to  his  friend 
Fouche,  who  sent  him  on  a  voyage  of  diuco-very  to  Cayenne, 
from  which  he  will  not  probably  return  very  soon. 


LETTER  XL. 

Paris ,    September,    1805. 

MY   LORD, 

MADAME  de  C n  is  now  one  of  our  most  fashionable  la- 
dies. Once  in  the  week  she  has  a  grand  tea-party,  once  in  a 
fortnight  a  grand  dinner  ;  and  once  in  the  month  a  grand  ball. 
Foreign  gentlemen  are  particularly  well  received  at  her  house, 
which  of  course  is  much  frequented  by  them.  As  you  intend 
to  visit  this  country  after  a  peace,  it  may  be  of  some  service  to 
you  not  to  be  unacquainted  with  the  portrait  of  a  lady,  whose  in- 
vitation to  see  the  original,  you  may  depend  upon  the  day  after 
your  arrival. 

Madame  de  C n  is  the  widow  of  the  great  and  useless  tra- 
veller, Count  de  C n,  to  whom  his  relatives  pretend  that 

she  was  never  married.  Upon  his  death-bed  he  acknowledged 
her,  however,  for  his  wife,  and  left  her  mistress  of  a  fortune  of 
three  hundred  thousand  livres  a-year,  (12,000/.).  The  first  four 
years  of  her  widowhood  she  passed  in  law -suits  before  the  tribu- 
nals, where  the  plaintiffs  could  not  prove  that  she  was  unmar- 
ried, nor  she  herself  that  she  -was  married.  But  Madame  Napo- 
leone  Buonaparte,  for  a  small  douceur,  speaking  in  her  favour, 
the  consciences  of  the  juries  and  the  understanding  of  the  judges 
were  all  convinced  at  once,  that  she  had  been  the  lawful  wife, 

and  was  the  lawful  heiress,  of  Count  de  C n,  who   had  no 

children,  or  nearer  relatives  than  third  cousins. 

Count  de  C n  was  travelling  in  the  East-Indies  when  the 

»  Revolution  broke  out.     His  occupation  there  was  a  very  inno- 
cent one  j  he  drew  countenances,  being  one  of  the  most  enthusi- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  175 

astic  sectaries  of  Lavater,  and  modestly  called  himself  the  first 
physiognomist  in  the  world.  Indeed  he  had  been  at  least  the 
most  laborious  one,  for  lie  left  behind  him  a  collection  of  six  thou- 
sand two  hundred  portraits  drawn  by  himself  in  the  four  quar- 
ters of  the  world,  during  a  period  of  thirty  years. 

He  never  engaged  a  servant,  nor  dealt  with  a  tradesman,  whose 
physiognomy  had  not  been  examined  by  him.  In  his  travels,  he 
preferred  the  worst  accommodations  in  a  house  where  he  approv- 
ed of  the  countenance  of  the  host,  to  the  best,  where  the  traits 
or  lines  of  the  landlord's  face  were  irregular,  or  did  not  coincide 
with  his  ideas  of  physiognomical  propriety.  The  cut  of  a  face, 
its  expression,  the  length  of  the  nose,  the  width  or  smallness  of 
the  mouth,  the  form  of  the  eye-iids  or  of  the  ears,  the  colour  or 
thickness  of  the  hair,  with  the  shape  and  tout  ensc?nble  of  the 
head,  were  ahvays  minutely  considered  and  discussed  before  he 
entered  into  any  agreement  on  any  subject  with  any  individual 
whatever.  Whatever  recommendations,  or  whatever  attesta- 
tions were  produced,  if  they  did  not  correspond  with  his  own 
physiognomical  remarks  and  calculations,  they  were  disregard- 
ed ;  while  a  person,  whose  physiognomy  pleased  him,  required 
no  other  introduction  to  obtain  his  confidence.  Whether  he 
thought  himself  wiser  than  his  forefathers,  he  certainly  did  not 
grow  richer  than  they  were.  Charlatans  who  imposed  upon  his 
credulity,  and  impostors  who  flattered  his  mania ;  servants  who 
robbed  him,  and  mistresses  who  deceived  him,  proved,  that  if 
his  knowledge  of  physiognomy  was  great,  it  was  by  no  means 
infallible.  At  his  death,  of  the  fortune  left  him  by  his  parents, 
only  the  half  remained. 

His  friends  often  amused  themselves  at  the  expense  of  his  foi- 
bles. When  he  prepared  for  a  journey  to  the  East,  one  of  them 
recommended  him  a  servant,  upon  \vhose  fidelity  he  could  de- 
pend. After  examining  with  minute  scrupulosity  the  head  of  the 
person,  he  wrote,  "  My  friend,  I  accept  your  valuable  presem. 
From  calculations  which  never  deceive  me,  Mauville  (the  ser- 
vant's name)  possesses,  with  the  fidelity  of  a  dog,  the  intrepidity 
of  the  lion.  Chastity  itself  is  painted  on  his  front,  modesty  in 
his  looks,  temperance  on  his  cheek,  and  his  mouth  and  nose  be- 
speak honesty  itself."  Shortly  after  the  Count  had  landed  at 
Pondicherry,  Mauville,  who  was  a  girl,  died  in  a  condition  which 


if&  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

showed  that  chastity  had  not  been  the  divinity  to  whom  she  had 
chiefly  sacrificed.  In  her  trunk  were  found  several  trinkets  be- 
longing to  her  master,  which  she  honestly  had  appropriated  to 
herself.  His  miscalculation  on  this  subject  the  Count  could  not 
but  avow  ;  he  added,  however,  that  it  was  the  entire  fault  of  his 
friend,  who  had  duped  him  with  regard  to  the  sex. 

Madame  de  C — n  was,  on  accountof  her  physiognomy,  purcha- 
sed by  her  late  husband,  when  travelling  in  Turkey,  from  a  mer- 
chant of  Circassian  slaves,  when  she  was  under  seven  years  of 
age  ;  and  sent  her  for  education  to  a  relation  of  the  count,  an 
Abbess  of  a  Convent  in  Languedoc.  On  his  return  from  Tur- 
key some  years  afterwards,  he  took  her  under  his  own  care,  and 
she  accompanied  him  over  all  Asia,  and  returned .  first  to  Francs 
in  1796, where  her  husband's  name  was  upon  the  list  of  emigrants, 
though  he  had  not  been  in  France  for  ten  years  before  the  Revo-; 
lution.  However,  by  some  pecuniary  arrangements  with  Bar- 
ras,  he  recovered  his  property,  which  he  did  not  long  enjoy,  for 
he  died  in  1798.  Mistress  of  a  large  fortune,  with  some  rem- 
nants of  beauty  and  elegance  of  manners,  the  suitors  of  Ma- 
dame de  C n  have  been  numerous,  and  among  them  several 

senators  and  generals,  and  even  the  minister  Chaptal.  But  she 
has  politely  declined  all  their  offers,  preferring  her  liberty,  and  the 
undisturbed  right  of  following  her  own  inclination,  to  the  incon- 
venient ties  of  Hymen.  A  gentleman,  whom  she  calls,  and  who 

passes  for   her  "brother,  Chevalier  de  M — T ,  a    knight  of 

Malta,  assists  her  in  doing  the  honours  of  her  house,  and  is  con- 
sidered as  her  favourite  lover  ;  though  report  and  the  scandalous 
chronicle  say,  that  she  bestows  her  favours  on  every  person  who 
wishes  to  bestow  on  her  his  name,  and  that  therefore  her  gal- 
lants are  at  least  as  numerous  as  her  suitors. 

Such  is  the  true  statement  of  the  past  as  well  as  the  present 

with  regard   to  Madame  de  C n.     She   relates,  however,  a 

different  story.     She  says  that  she  is  a  daughter  of  the  Marquis 

de  M de  T ,  of  a  Languedoc  family  ;    that  she  sailed 

when  a  child,  with  her  mother  in  a  felucca  from  Nice  to  Malta, 
-there  to  visit  her  brother  ;  was  captured  by  an  Algerine  pirate, 
separated  from  her  mother  and  carried  to  Constantinople  by  a 
.merchant  of  slaves  ;  there  she  was  purchased  by  Count  de 
C — — i),  who  restored  her  to  her  family,  and  whom  therefore. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD-  177 

notwithstanding  the  difference  of  their  ages,  she  married  from 
gratitude.  This  pretty  romantic  story  is  ordered  in  our  court 
circles  to  be  officially  believed  ;  and  of  course  is  believed  by  no- 
body, not  even  by  the  Emperor  and  Empress  themselves,  who 
would  not  give  her  the  place  of  a  lady  in  waiting,  though  her 
request  was  accompanied  with  a  valuable  diamond  to  the  latter. 
The  present  was  kept,  but  the  offer  declined. 

All  the  members  of  the  Buonaparte  family,  females  as  well  as 
males,  honour  her  house  with  their  visits,  and  with  the  accept- 
ance of  her  invitations  ;  and  it  is  therefore,  among  our  fashion- 
ables, the  haul  ton  to  be  of  the  society  and  circle  of  Madame  de 

C n. 

Last  February  Madame  de  P — t  (the  wife  of  Count  de  P — t, 
a  relation  by  her  husband's  side,  who  by  the  revolution  have  lost 
all  their  property,  and  live  with  her  as  companions)  was  brought 
to  bed  of  a  son  ;  the  child  was  baptized  by  the  cardinal  de  Bel- 
loy,  and  Madame  Joseph,  and  Prince  Louis  Buonaparte  stood 
sponsors.  This  occurrence  was  celebrated  with  great  pomp, 
and  a  fete  was  given  to  near  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons  of 
both  sexes  j  as  usual,  a  mixture  of  ci-devant  nobles  and  ci-devant 
sans-culottes  ;  of  rank  and  moanness  ;  of  upstart  wealth  and  beg- 
gared dignity. 

What  that  day  struck  me  most  was  the  peculiar  audacity  of 
the  senator  Villetard,  in  teizing  and  insulting  the  old  cardinal  de 
Belloy  with  his  impertinent  conversation  and  affected  piety.  This 
Villetard  was,  before  the  revolution,  a  journeyman  barber,  and 
was  released  in  1789,  by  the  mob,  from  the  prison  of  theChate- 
let)  where  he  was  confined  for  theft.  In  1791,  his  patriotism  was 
so  well  known  in  the  department  of  Yonne,  that  he  was  deputed 
by  the  Jacobins  there,  to  the  Jacobins  of  the  capital,  with  an  ad- 
dress, encouraging  and  advibing  the  deposition  of  Louis  XVL 
and  in  1792  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  National  Conven- 
tion, where  the  most  sanguinary  and  the  most  violent  of  the  fac- 
tious were  always  certain  to  reckon  him  in  the  number  of  their 
adherents. 

In  December,  1797,  when  an  insurrection,  prepared  by  Joseph 
Buonaparte  at  Rome,  deprived  the  late  revered  Pontiff  both  of 
his  sovereignty  and  liberty,  Villetard  was  sent  by  the  Jacobin 
and  atheistical  party  of  the  Directory  to  Loretto,  to  seize  and 


178  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

carry  off  the  celebrated  Madonna.  In  the  execution  of  this  com- 
mission, he  displayed  a  conduct  worthy  uic  aitleness  01  iii.  De- 
nnis and  the  criminality  of  his  mind.  Tae  wooden  im,.lbe  of 
the  holy  virgin,  a  black  gown,  said  to  have  appertained  M  ner, 
together  with  three  broken  china  phtes,  which  tue  Koman  Cuuo- 
lic  faithful  have  for  ages  believed  to  have  been  used  uy  ner,  were 
presented  by  him  to  the  Directory  wiui  a  crueii>  sauu'.iuous 
show,  accompanied  by  a  horribly  blasphemous  letter,  lie  parsed 
the  next  night,  after  he  had  perpetrated  this  sacrilege,^  with 
two  prostitutes,  in  the  chapel  of  the  holy  virgin  ;  and  on  the 
next  morning  placed  one  of  them  naked  on  the  pedestal  \vt.ere 
the  statue  of  the  virgin  had  formerly  stood;  and  ordered  all  the 
devotees  at  Loretto,  and  two  leagues  round,  to  prostrate  them- 
selves before  her.  This  shocking  command,  occasioned  the  pie- 
mature  death  of  fifteen  ladies,  two  of  whom,  wi.o  were  nuns, 
died  on  the  spot,  on  beholding  the  horrid  outrage  ;  and  many 
more  were  deprived  of  their  reason.  How  barbarously  unfeeling 
must  that  wretch  be,  who,  in  bereaving  the  religious,  the  pious, 
an<!  the  conscientious  of  their  consolation  and  hope,  udc'is  tiie  tor- 
meMiing  reproach  of  apostacy,  by  forcing  virtue  upon  its  kiu.es 
to  bow  before  what  it  knows  to  be  guilt  and  infamy  !  I ! 

A  tiv.itor  to  his  associates  as  to  his  God,  it  was  he,  who,  in 
November  1799,  presented  at  St.  CtGiid  the  Decree,  which  ex- 
cluded all  those  who  opposed  Buonaparte's  authority  from  the 
council  of  Five  Hundred,  and  appointed  the  two  committees, 
which  made  him  a  First  Consul.  In  reward  for  this  act  of  treach- 
ery, he  was  nominated  to  a  place  in  tae  Conservative  Senate. 
He  has  now  ranked  himself  among  our  modern  saints,  goes  re- 
gularly to  mass,  and  confesses  ;  has  made  a  brother  of  his,  who 
was  a  drummer,  an  abbe  ;  and  his  assiduity  about  the  cardinal 
was,  probably,  with  a  view  to  obtain  advancement  for  tiiis  edify- 
ing priest. 

The  Cardinal  de  Belloy  is  now  ninety-six  years  of  age,  being 
born  in  1709,  and  has  been  a  Bishop  for  fifty -three  years,  but 
during  the  revolution  was  proscribed  with  all  other  prelates.— 
He  remained,  however,  in  France,  where  his  age  saved  him  from 
the  guillotine  ;  but  not  from  being  reduced  to  the  greatest  want.  A 
descendant  of  a  noble  family,  and  possessing  an  unpolluted  cha- 
racter, Buonaparte  fi:;ed  upon  him,  as  one  of  the  pillars  lor  the- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  179 

re-establishment  of  the  catholic  worship  :  made  him  anarch- 
bishop  of  Paris,  and  procured  him  the  rank  of  a  cardinal  from 
Home.  But  he  is  now,  in  his  second  childhood,  entirely  direct- 
ed by  his  grand  vicars  Malaret,  De  Mons,  and  Legeas,  who 
are  in  the  pay  of,  and  absolutely  devoted  to,  Buonaparte.  An 
innocent  instrument  in  their  hands,  of  those  impious  compli- 
ments, pronounced  by  him  to  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress,  he 
did  not  perhaps  even  understand  the  meaning.  For  such  a  man 
the  vile  and  artful  Villetard  might  extort  any  promise.  I  observ- 
ed, however,  with  pleasure,  that  he  was  watched  by  the  grand 
vicar  Malaret,  who  seldom  loses  sight  of  his  eminence. 

These  two  so  opposite  characters,  I  mean  de  Belloy  and  Ville- 
taVd,   are  already  speaking  evidences  of  the  composition  of  the 

society,  at  Madame  de  C n's.     But  I  will  tell  you  something 

still  more  striking.  This  lady  is  famous  for  her  elegant  services 
of  plate,  as  much  as  for  her  delicate  taste,  in  entertaining  her 
parties.  After  the  supper  on  this  night,  eleven  silver  and  four 
gold  plates,  besides  numerous  silver  and  gold  spoons,  forks, 
kc.  were  missed  ;  she  informed  Fouche  of  her  loss,  who  had  her 
house  surrounded  by  spies,  with  orders  not  to  let  any  servant 
pass,  without  undergoing  a  strict  search.  The  first  gentleman 
who  called  for  his  carriage,  was  his  excellency,  the  counsellor 
of  state  and  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  Treilhard. 
His  servants  were  stopped  and  the  cause  explained.  They  v/i! sing- 
ly, and  against  the  protest  of  their  master,  suffered  themselves 
to  be  searched.  Nothing  was  found  upon  them  ;  but  the  police 
agents  observing  the  full-dressed  hat  of  their  master  rather  bulky 
under  his  arm,  took  the  liberty  to  look  into  it,  where  they  found 
one  of  Madame  de  C — — n's  gold  plates,  and  two  of  her  spoons. 
His  excellency  immediately  ordered  his  scrvanrs  to  be  arrested, 
for  having  concealed  their  theft  there,  r  otic  he,  however,  when 
called  out,  advised  his  friend  to  fbrgive  them  for  misplacing  them 
as  the  le ss  said  on  the  subject,  the  better.  When  Madame  de 

C «-n  heard  of  this  discovery,  she  asked  Fouche  to  recul   his 

order,  or  to  alter  it ;  "a  repetition  of  such  misplacing*  in  the 
hats  or  in  the  pockets  of  the  masters,4'  said  she,  "  would  injure 
the  reputation  of  my  house  and  company.'*  She  never  recovered 
the  remainder  of  her  loss,  and  that  she  might  not  be  exposed  in 
future  to  the  same  occurrences,  she  the  following  day  bought 
two  services  of  china,  to  be  used  when  she  had  mixed  society, 


180  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Treilhard  had,  before  the  revolution,  the  reputation  of  being 
an  honest  man,  and  an  able  advocate  ;  but  has  since  joined  the 
criminals  of  all  factions,  being  an  accomplice  in  their  guilt  and 
a  sharer  of  their  spoils.  In  the  Convention  he  voted  for  the  death 
of  Louis  XVI.  and  pursued  without  mercy  the  unfortunate  Ma- 
ria Antoinette  to  the  scaffold.  During  his  missions  in  the  depart- 
ments, wherever  he  went  the  guillotine  was  erected,  and  blood 
flowed  in  streams.  He  was,  nevertheless,  accused  by  Robespierre 
of  moderatism.  At  Lisle,  in  1797,  and  at  Rastadt,  in  1798,  he 
negotiated  as  a  plenipotentiary  with  the  representatives  of  princes, 
and  in  1799,  corresponded  as  a  director  with  emperors  and  kings, 
to  whom  he  wrote  as  his  great  and  dear  frit  mis.  He  is  now  a 
-counsellor  of  state,  in  the  section  of  legislation,  and  enjoys  a  for- 
tune of  several  millions  of  livres,  arising  from  estates  in  the 
country  and  from  leases  in  the  capital.  As  ti.is  accident  at  Ma- 
dame de  C n's  was  soon  public,  his  friends  gave  out  that  he 

has  of  late  been  exceedingly  absent,  and  from  absence  of  mind, 
puts  every  taing  he  can  lay  hold  of  into  his  pocket.  He  is  not  a 
favourite  with  Madame  Buonaparte ;  and  she  asked  her  husband 
to  dismiss  and  disgrace  him  for  an  act  so  disgraceful  to  a  grand 
officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  but  was  answered,  "  Were  I  to 
turn  away  all  the  thieves  and  rogues  that  encompass  me  I  should 
soon  cease  to  reign.  I  despise  them,  but  I  must  employ  them.** 

It  is  whispered  that  the  police  have  discovered    another  of 

Madame  de  C n's  lost  gold  plates,  at  a  pawn-broker's,  where 

it  had  been  ^pledged  by  the  wife  of  another  counsellor  of  state, 
Francais  de  Nantes.  Tnis  I  give  you  merely  as  a  report ;  though 
the  fact  is  that  Madame  Francais  is  very  fond  of  gambling,  but 
very  unfortunate  ;  and  she,  with  other  of  our  fashionable  ladies, 
has  more  than  once  resorted  to  her  charms,  for  the  payment  of 
her  gambling  debts. 


LETTER  XLI. 

Paris)  September^   1805. 
Ml"   LORD* 

SINCE  my  return  here,  I  hate  never  neglected  to  present  my- 
self before  our  sovereign,  on  his  days  of  grand  reviews,  and 
grand  diplomatic  audiences.  I  never  saw  him  more  condescend* 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  181 

ing,  more  agreeable,  or,  at  least,  less  offensive,  than  on  the  day 
of  his  last  levee,  before  he  set  out  to  be  inaugurated  a  king  of 
Italy  ;  nor  worse  tempered,  petulant,  agitated,  abrupt,  and  rude, 
than  at  his  first  grand  audience  after  his  arrival  from  Milan, 
where  this  ceremony  had  been  performed.  I  am  not  the  only  one 
who  made  this  remark  ;  he  did  not  disguise  either^his  good  or 
ill  humour  ;  and  it  was  only  requisite  to  have  eyes  and  ears,  to 
see  and  be  disgusted  at  the  difference  of  behaviour. 

I  have  heard  a  female  friend  of  Madame  Buonaparte  explain, 
in  part,  the  cause  of  this  alteration.   Just  before  he  set  out  for 
Italy,  the  agreeable  news  of  the  success" of  the  first  Rochefort 
squadron  in  the  West-Indies,  and  the  escape  of  our  Toulon  fleet 
from  the  vigilance  of  Lord  Nelson,   highly  elevated  his  spirits, 
as  it  was  the  first  naval  enterprise  of  any  consequence  since  his 
reign.    I  am  certain  that  one  gram;!  naval  victory  would  flatter 
his  vanity  and  ambition  more  than  all  the  glory  of  one  of  his 
most  brilliant  continental  campaigns.    He  had  also,  at  that  time, 
great  expectations  that  another  negotiation   with   Russia  would 
keep   the    continent  submissive  under   his  dictature,  until  he 
should  find  an  opportunity  of  crushing  your  power.   You  may 
be   sure  that  he  hud  no  small  hopes  of  striking  a  blow  in  your 
country,  after  a  .junction  of  our  fleet  with  the  Spanish  :  not  by 
any  engagement  between  our  Brest  fleet  and  your  Channel  fleet, 
but  under  a  supposition  that  you  would  detach  squadrons  to  the 
East  and  West-Indies,  in  search  of  the  combined  fleet,  which,  by 
an  unexpected  return,  according  to  orders,  would  have  then  left 
us  masters  of  the  Channel,  and,  if  joined  by  the  Batavian  fleet, 
perhaps  even  of  the  North  Sea.   By  the  incomprehensible   ac- 
tivity of  Lord  Nelson,  and  by  the  defeat  (or,  as  we  call  it  here, 
the  negative  victory)  of  Villeneuve  and  Gravina,  all  this  first 
prospect  had  vanished.   Our  vengeance  against  a  nation  of  shop- 
keepers, we  were  not  only  under  the  necessity  of  postponing, 
but,  from  the  unpolite  threats  and  treaties  of  the  cabinet  of  St. 
Petersburg,  with  those  of  Vienna  and  St.  James's,  we  were  on 
the  eve  of  a  continental  war,  and  our  gun-boats,  instead  of  being 
useful  in  carrying  an  army  to  the  destruction  of  the  tyrants  of 
the  seas,  were  burthensome,  as  an  army  was  necessary  to  guard 
them,  and  to  prevent  these  tyrants  from  capturing  or  destroying 
them.    Such  changes  in  so  short  a  period  of  time   as   three 


182  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

months,  might  irritate  a  temper  less  impatient  than  that  of  Na- 
poleon e  the  first. 

At  his  grand  audience  here,  even  after  the  army  of  England 
had  moved  towards  Germany,  when  the  die  was  cast,  and  his 
mind  should,  therefore,  have  been  made  up,  he  was  almost  in- 
supportable. The  low  bows,  and  the  still  humbler  expressions 
of  the  Prussian  ambassador,  the  Marquis  of  Lucchesini,  were 
hardly  noticed  ;  and  the  Saxon  ambassador,  Count  de  Duncan, 
•was  addressed  in  a  language  that  no  well-bred  master  ever  uses 
in  speaking  to  a  menial  servant.  He  did  not  cast  a  look,  or  utter  a 
•Word,  that  was  not  an  insult  to  the  audience,  and  a  disgrace  to 
his  rank.  I  never  before  saw  him  vent  his  rage  and  disappoint- 
ment so  indiscriminately.  We  were,  indeed,  (if  I  may  use  the 
term)  humbled  and  trampled  upon  en  masse.  Some  he,  put  out 
of  countenance,  by  staring  angrily  at  them  ;  others  he  shocked 
by  his  hoarse  voice,  and  harsh  words ;  and  all — all  of  us  were 
afraid,  in  our  turn,  of  experiencing  something  worse  than  our 
neighbours.  I  observed  more  than  one  minister,  and  more  than 
one  general,  change  colour,  and  even  perspire,  at  his  majesty's 
approach. 

I  believe  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps  here 
•will  all  agree  with  me,  that,  at  a  future  congress,  the  restora- 
tion of  the  ancient  and  becoming  etiquette  of  the  kings  of  France 
would  be  as  desirable  a  point  to  demand  from  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  as  the  restoration  of  the  balance  of  power. 

Before  his  army  of  England  quitted  its  old  quarters  on  the 
coast,  the  officers  and  men  often  felt  the  effects  of  his  ungovernable 
temper.  When  several  regiments  of  grenadiers,  of  the  division 
of  Oudinot,  were  defiling  before  him,  on  the  25th  of  test  month, 
he  frequently,  and  severally,  though  without  cause,  reprobated 
their  manner  of  marching  ;  and  once  rode  up  to  captain  Four- 
nois,  pushed  him  forwards  with  the  point  of  a  small  cane,  calling 
out  **  Sacrc  Dieu  !  advance,  you  walk  like  a  turkey."  In  the  first 
moment  of  indignation,  the  captain,  striking  at  the  cane  with 
his  sword,  made  a  push  or  a  gesture,  as  if  threatening  the  per- 
son of  Buonaparte,  who  called  out  to  his  aid-de-camp,  Savary, 
*'  Disarm  the  villain,  and  arrest  him  1"  "  It  is  unnecessary,  the 
captain  replied,  "  I  have  served  a  tyrant,  and  merit  my  fate  :" — 
;>o  saying,  he  thrust  his  sword  through  his  heart.  His  whole 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  1*3 

company  stopped  instantly,  as  at  a  word  of  command,  and  a  ge* 
neral  murmur  was  heard. 

"  Lay  clown  your  arms,  and  march  out  of  the  file  instantly,'3 
commanded  Buonaparte,  "  or  you  shall  be  cut  down  for  your 
mutiny  by  my  guides." — They  hesitated  for  a  moment,  but  the 
guides  advancing  to  surround  them,  they  obeyed,  and  were  dis- 
armed. On  the  following  afternoon,  by  a  special  military  com- 
mission, each  tenth  man  was  condemned  to  be  shot ;  but  Buona- 
parte pardoned  them,  upon  condition  of  serving  for  life  in  the  co- 
lonies ;  and  the  whole  company  was  ordered  to  the  colonial  de- 
pots. The  widow  and  live  children  of  Captain  Fournois,  the 
next  morning  threw  themselves  at  the  emperor's  feet,  presenting 
a  petition,  iu  which  they  stated  that  the  pay  of  the  captain  had 
been  their  only  support.  "Weil,"  replied  Buonaparte  to  the 
kneeling  petitioners,  "  Fournois  was  both  a  fool  and  a  traitor  ; 
but,  nevertheless,  I  shall  take  care  of  you."  Indeed,  they  have 
<>een  so  well  taken  care  of,  that  nobody  knows  what  has  become 
of  them. 

I  am  almost  certain  that  I  am  not  telling  you  what  you  did 
Tiot  know  beforehand,  in  informing  you,  that  the  spirit  of  our 
troops  is  greatly  different  from  that  of  the  Germans,  and  even 
from  that  of  your  own  country.  Every  one  of  our  soldiers  would 
prefer  being  shot  to  being  beat  or  caned. — Flogging  is  with  us 
out  of  the  question.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  national  vanity,  but  I 
am  doubtful  whether  any  other  army  upon  the  globe  is,  or  can 
be,  governed,  with  regard  to  discipline,  in  a  less  violent  and  more 
delicate  manner  ;  and  nevertheless,  be  kept  in  subordination,  -and 
perform  the  most  brilliant  exploits.  Remember,  I  speak  of  .our 
spirit  of  subordination  and  discipline,  and  not  of  our  character 
as  citizens,  as  patriots,  or  as  subjects.  I  have  often  hinted  it, 
but,  1  believe,  I  have  not  explained  myself  so  fully  before  ;  but 
my  firm  opinion  and  persuasion  is,  that  with  regard  to  our  loy- 
alty, our  duty,  and  our  moral  and  political  principles,  I  do  not 
think  that  another  such  an  inconsistent  and  despicable  people 
exist  in  the  universe. 

The  condition  of  the  slave  is  certainly  in  itself  that  of  vileness  ; 
but  is  that  slave  a  vile  being,  who  for  a  blow  pierces  his  bosom 
because  he  is  unable  to  avenge  it  ?  And  what  epithet  can  be  given 
him,  who  braves  voluntarily  a  death  seemingly  certain,  not  from 


J84  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  love  of  his  country,,  but  from  a  principle  of  honour,  almost  in- 
compatible with  the  dishonour  of  bondage. 

During  the  siege  of  York  Town,  in  America,  we  had,  during 
one  night,  erected  a  battery,  with  intent  to  blow  up  a  place 
which,  according  to  the  report  of  our  spies,  was  your  magazine 
of  ammunition,  &c.  We  had  not  time  to  finish  it  before  day- 
light ;  but  one  loaded  twenty -four  pounder  was  mounted  ;  and 
our  cannoneer,  the  moment  he  was  about  to  fire  it,  was  killed. 
Six  more  of  our  men,  in  the  same  attempt,  experienced  the  same 
fate.  My  regiment  constituted  the  advanced  guard  nearest  to  the 
spot,  and  La  Fayette  brought  me  the  order  from  the  Commander 
in  Chief,  to  engage  some  of  my  men  upon  that  desperate  un- 
dertaking. I  spoke  to  them,  and  two  advanced,  but  were  both 
instantly  shot  by  your  sharp-shooters.  I  then  looked  at  my  grena- 
^iers  without  uttering  any  thing,  when,  to  my  sorrow,  one  of  my 
best  and  most  orderly  men  advanced,  saying  :  "My  colonel  per- 
-  mit  me  to  try  my  fortune  !"  Having  assented,  he  went  coldly 
amidst  hundreds  of  bullets  whistling  around  his  ears,  set  fire  to 
the  cannon,  which  blew  up  a  depot  of  powder  as  was  expected, 
and  in  the  confusion  returned  unhurt.  La  Fayette  then  present- 
ed him  with  his  purse.  "  No,  Sir,"  replied  he,  «  money  did  not 
make  me  venture  upon  such  a  perilous  undertaking."  I  under- 
stood my  man,  promoted  him  to  a  sergeant,  and  recommended 
him  to  Rochambeau,  who,  in  some  months,  procured  him  the 
commission  of  a  sub-lieutenant.  He  is  now  one  of  Buonaparte's 
field-marshals,  and  the  only  one  of  that  rank  who  has  no  crimes 
to  reproach  himself  with. — This  man  was  the  soldier  of  a  des- 
pot, but  was  his  action  that  of  a  man  of  honour,  which  a  staunch 
republican  of  ancient  Rome  would  have  been  proud  of  ?  Who 
can  explain  this  contradiction  ? 

This  anecdote  about  Fournois  I  heard  General  Savary  relate 
at  Madame  Duchatel's,  as  a  proof  of  Buonaparte's  generosity  and 
clemency,  which  he  affirmed  excited  the  admiration  of  the  whole 
camp  at  Boulogne.  I  do  not  suppose  this  officer  to  be  above  thir- 
ty years  of  age,  of  which  he  has  passed  the  first  twenty-five  in 
orphan-houses  or  in  watch-houses  :  but  no  tyrant  ever  had  a  more 
cringing  slave,  or  a  more  abject  courtier.  His  affectation  to  ex- 
tol every  thing  that  Buonaparte  does,  right  or  wrong,  is  at  last 
become  so  habitual,  that  it  is  naturalized,  and  you  may  mistake 
that  for  sincerity  which  is  nothing  but  imposture  or  flattery, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  183 

This  son  of  a  Swiss  porter  is  now  one  of  Buonaparte's  adju- 
tant-generals, a  colonel  of  the  Gens  d'Armes  d'Elite,  a  general 
of  brigade  in  the  army,  and  a  commander  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour — all  these  places  he  owes,  not  to  valour  or  merit,  but  to 
abjectness,  immorality  and  servility.  When  an  aid-de-camp  with 
Buonaparte  in  Egypt,  he  served  him  as  a  spy  on  his  comrades, 
and  on  officers  of  the  staff  ;  and  was  so  much  detested,  that  near 
Aboukir  several  shots  were  fired  at  him  in  his  tent,  by  his  own 
countrymen.    He  is  supposed  still  to  continue  the  same  espio- 
nage, and  as  a  colonel  of  the  Gens  d'Armes  d'Elite,  he  is  charg- 
ed with  the  secret  execution  of  ail  proscribed  persons  or  state 
prisoners,  who  have  been  secretly  condemned  ;   a  commission 
that  a  despot  gives  to  a  man  he  trusts,  but  dares  not  offer  to  a 
man  he  esteems.    lie  is  so  well  known,  that,  the  instant  he  enters 
a  society,  silence  immediately  follows,  and  he  has  the  whole  con- 
versation to  himself.  This  lie  is  stupid  enough  to  take  for  a  com- 
pliment, or  for  a  mark  of  respect,  or  an  acknowledgment  of  his 
superior  parts  and  intelligence  ;   when,  in  fact,  it  is  a  direct  re- 
proach with  which  prudence  arms  itself  against  suspected  or 
known  dishonesty.    Besides  his  wife,  he  has  to  support  six  ether 
women  whom  he  has  seduced  and  ruined  ;  and  notwithstanding 
the  numerous  opportunities  his  master  has  procured  him  of  pil- 
laging and  enriching  himself,  he  is  still  much  in  debt ;  but  woe  to 
his  creditors,  were  they  indiscreet  enough  to  ask  for  their  pay- 
ments !  The  Secret  Tribunal  would  soon  seize  them,  and  trans- 
port them,  or  deliver  them  over  to  the  hands  of  their  debtor,  to  « 
be  shot  as  traitors  or  conspirators. 


LETTER    XLII. 

Pam,  September')   1805, 

MY    LORD, 

I  AM  told  that  it  was  the  want  of  pecuniary  resources  that 
made  Buonaparte  so  ill-tempered  on  his  last  levee-day.  ,He 
would  not  have  come  here  at  all,  but  preceded  his  army  to  Stras- 
burgh,  had  his  minister  of  finances,  Gaudin,  and  his  .minister  of 

R  2 


186  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  public  treasury,  Marbois,  been  able  to  procure  forty-four  mil-  * 
lions  of  livres  (1,800,000/.)   to  pay  a  part  of  the  arrears  of  the 
troops,  and  for  the  speedy  conveyance  of  ammunition  and  artille- 
ry, towards  the  Rhine. 

Immediately  after  his  arrival  here,  Buonaparte  sent  for  the 
Directors  of  the   Bank  of  France,  informing  them,  that  within 
twenty-four  hours,  they  must  advance  him  thirty-six  millions  of 
livres  (1,500,000/.)  upon  the  revenue  of  the  last  quarter  of  1808. 
The  president  of  the  bank,  Senator  Garrat,  demanded  two  hours 
to  lay  before  the  Emperor  the  situation  of  the  bank,  that  his  Ma- 
jesty might  judge  what  sum  it   was  possible  to  spare,   without 
ruining  the  credit  of  an  establishment,  hitherto  so  useful  to  the 
commerce  of  the  empire.     To  this  Buonaparte   replied,  that  he 
was  not  ignorant  of  the  resources,  or  of  the  credit  of  the  bank,  no 
more  than  of  its  public  utility  ;   but  that  the  affairs  of  state  suf- 
fered from  every  hour's  delay,  ami  that,  therefore,  he  insisted  upon 
having  the  sum  demanded,  even  within  two  hours,  partly  in  paper 
and  partly  in  cash  ;  and  were  they  to  show  any  more  opposition, 
he  would  order  the  bank  and  all  its  effects  to  be  seized  that  mo- 
ment.    The  Directors  bowed,  and  returned  to  the  bank  ;  whither 
they  were  followed  by  four  waggons,  escorted  by  hussars,   and 
belonging  to  the  financial  department  of  the  Army  of  England. 
In  these  were  placed  eight  millions  of  livres  in  cash  ;   and  twen- 
ty-eight millions  in  bank  notes,  were  delivered  to  M.  Lefevre, 
the  secretary-general  of  Marbois,  who  presented,  in  exchange, 
Buonaparte's  bond  and  security  for  the  amount,  bearing  an  inter- 
est of  five  per  cent  yearly. 

When  this  money-transaction  was  known  to  the  public,  the 
alarm  became  general,  and  long  before  the  hour  the  bank  is 
usually  open,  the  adjoining  streets  were  crowded  with  persons, 
desiring  to  exchange  their  notes  for  cash.  During  the  night, 
the  Directors  had  taken  care  to  pay  themselves  for  the  bank 
notes  in  their  own  possession,  with  silver  or  gold  ;  and  as  they  ex- 
pected a  run,  they  ordered  all  persons  to  be  paid  in  copper  coin, 
as  long  as  any  money  of  that  metal  remained.  It  required  a 
longtime  to  count  those  half-pennies  and  centimes  (five  of  which 
make  a  sous,  or  half-penny)  but  the  people  -were  not  tired  with 
waiting^  until  towards  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when  the 
bank  is  shut -up.  They  then  became  so  clamorous,  that  a  com.- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  187 

pany  of  Gens-d'Armcs  was  placed,  for  protection,  at  the  entrance 
of  the  bank  ;  but,  as  the  tumult  increased,  the  street  was  sur- 
rounded by  the  police  guards,  and  above  six  hundred  individuals, 
many  of  them  women,  were- carried  offunder  an  escort,  to  differ- 
ent police  commissaries,  and  to  the  prefecture~of  the  police ; 
there,  most  of  them,  after  being  examined,  were  reprimanded 
and  released.  The  same  night,  the  police  spies  reported  in  the 
toffee-houses  of  the  Palais  Royal,  and  on  the  Boulevards,  that 
this  run  on  the  bank  was  encouraged,  and  paid  for  by  English 
emissaries,  some  of  whom  were  already  taken,  and  would  be  ex- 
ecuted on  the  next  day.  On  the  morning,  however,  the  streets 
adjoining  the  bank  were  still  more  crowded,  and  the  crowd  still 
more  tumultuous,  because  payment  was  refused  for  all  notes  but 
those  of  five  hundred  livres  (2 1/.)  The  activity  of  the  police 
agents,  supported  by  the  Gens-d*  Amies  and  police  soldiers,  again 
restored  order,  after  several  hundred  persons  had  been  taken  up 
for  their  mutinous  conduct.  Of  these,  many  were,  on  the  same 
evening,  loaded  with  chains,  and  placed  in  carts,  under  military 
escort,  paraded  about  near  the  bank  and  the  Palais  Royal  ;  the 
police  having,  as  a  measure  of  safety,  under  suspicion  that  they 
were  influenced  by  British  gold,  condemned  them  to  be  trans- 
ported to  Cayenne  ;  and  the  carts  set  out  on  the  same  night  for 
Rochefort,  the  place  of  their  embarkation, 

On  the  following  day,  not  an  individual  approached  the  bank,  but 
all  trade  and  all  payments  were  at  a  stand  ;  nobody  would  sell  but  for 
ready-money,  and  nobody  who  had  bank  notes  would  part  with  cash. 
Some  Jews  and  money-brokers,  in  the  Palais  Royal,  offered  cash  for 
these  bills,  at  a  discount  of  from  ten  to  twenty  per  cent.  But 
these  usurers  were,  in  their  turn,  taken  up  and  transported  as 
agents  of  Pitt.  An  interview  was  then  demanded  by  the  direct- 
ors and  principal  bunkers,  with  the  ministers  of  finances  and  of 
the  public  treasury.  In  tin's  conference  it  was  settled,  that  as 
soon  as  tSie  two  millions  of  dollars,  on  their  way  from  Spain,  had 
arrived  at  Paris,  the  bank  should  reassume  its- payments.  These 
dollars  government  would  lend  the  bank  for  three  months,  and 
take  in  return  its  notes,  but  the  bank  was  nevertheless  to  pay  an 
interest  of  six  per  cent  during  that  period.  All  the  bankers 
agreed,  not  to  press  unnecessarily,  for  any  exchange  of  bills  into 
cash  ;  and  to  keep  up  the  credit  of  the  bank  even  by  the  indi- 
vidual credit  of  their  own  houses. 


38  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

You  know,  I  suppose,  that  the  bank  of  France  has  never  issu- 
ed but  two  sorts  of  notes  ;  those  of  one  thousand  livres,  (42/.) 
and  those  of  five  hundred  livres  (2 1/.)  At  the  day  of  its  stoppage, 
sixty  millions  of  livres  (2,500,000/.)  of  the  former,  and  fifteen 
millions  of  livres  (625,000/.)  of  the  latter,  were  in  circulation  ; 
and  I  have  heard  a  banker  assert,  that  the  bank  had  not  then  six 
millions  of  livres,  (250,000/.)  in  money  and  bullion,  to  satisfy  the 
claims  of  its  creditors,-or  lo  honour  its  bills. 

The  shock  given  to  the  credit  of  the  bank  by  this  last  requi- 
sition of  Buonaparte,  will  be 'felt  for  a  long  time,  and  will,  \Nth 
difficulty,  ever  be  repaired  under  his  despotic  government. — 
Even  now,  when  the  bank  pays  in  cash,  our  merchants  make  a 
difference  from  five  to  ten  per  cent,  between  purchasing  for  spe- 
cie or  paying  in  bank  notes  :  and  this  mistrust  will  not  be  less- 
ened hereafter.  You  may,  perhaps,  object,  that  as  long  as  the 
bank  pays,  it  is  absurd  for  any  one  possessing  its  bills  to  pay 
dearer  than  with  cash,  which  might  so  easily  be  obtained.  This 
objection  would  stand  with  regard  to  your,  or  any  other  free 
country,  but  here,  where  no  payments  are  made  in  gold,  but 
always  in  silver  or  copper,  it  requires  a  cart  to  carry  away  forty, 
thirty,  or  twenty  thousand  livres,  in  coin  of  these  metals  ;  and 
would  immediately  excite  suspicion,  that  a  bearer  of  these  bills 
was  an  emissary  of  our  enemies,  or  an  enemy  of  our  govern- 
ment. With  us,  unfortunately,  suspicion  is  the  same  as  convic- 
tion, and  chastisement  follows  it  as  its  shadow. 

A  manufacturer  of  the  name  of  Debrais  established  in  the  Rue 
St.  Martin,  where  he  had  for  years,  carried  on  business  in  the 
woollen  line,  went  to  the  bank,  two  days  after  it  had  began  to 
pay.  He  demanded,  and  obtained  exchange,  for  twenty-four 
thousand  livres  (1,000/.)  in  notes,  necessary  for  him  to  pay 
what  was  due  by  him  to  his  workmen.  The  same  afternoon, 
six  of  our  custom-house  officers,  accompanied  by  police  agents 
and  Gens-d'Armes,  paid  him  a  domiciliary  visit,  under  pretence 
of  searching  for  English  goods.  Several  bales,  as  being  of  that 
description,  were  seized,  and  Debrais  was  carried  a  prisoner  to 
La  Force.  On  being  examined  by  Fouche,  he  offered  to  prove, 
by  the  very  men  who  had  fabricated  the  suspected  goods,  that 
they  were  not  English.  The  minister  silenced  him  by  saying, 
tjiat  government  had  not  only  evidence  of  the  contrary,  but  was 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  189 

convinced  that  he  was  employed  as  an  English  agent,  to  hurt 
the  credit  of  the  bank,  and,  therefore,  if  he  did  not  give  up  his 
accomplices  or  employers,  had  condemned  him  to  transporta- 
tion. In  vain  did  his  wife  and  daughters  petition  to  Madame 
Buonaparte  ;  Debrais  is  now  at  Rochefortj  if  not  already  em- 
barked for  our  colonies. 

When  he  was  arrested,  a  seal,  as  usual,  was  put  on  his 
house  ;  from  which  his  wife  and  family  were  turned  out,  until 
the  police  should  have  time  to  take  an  inventory  of  his  effects, 
and  had  decided  on ,  his  fate.  When  Madame  Debrais,  after 
much  trouble,  and  many  pecuniary  sacrifices,  at  last  obtained 
permission  to  have  the  seals  removed  and  re-enter  her  house,  she 
found  that  all  her  plate,  and  more  than  half  her  goods  and  furni- 
ture, had  been  stolen  and  carried  away.  Upon  her  complaint  of 
of  this  theft,  she  was  thrown  into  prison  for  not  being  able  to 
support  her  complaint  with  proofs,  and  for  attempting  to  vilify 
the  characters  of  the  agents  of  our  government.  She  is  still  in 
prison,  but  her  daughters  are,  by  her  orders,  disposing  of  the  re« 
mainder  of  their  parents'  property,  and  intend  to  join  their  father, 
as  soon  as  their  mother  has  recovered  her  liberty. 

The  same  tyranny  that  supports  the  credit  of  our  bank,  also 
keeps  up  the  price  of  our  stocks.  Any  of  our  great  stockholders} 
who  sell  out  to  any  large  amount,  if  they  are  unable  to  account 
for,  .or  unwilling  to  declare  the  manner  in  which  they  intend  to 
employ  their  money,  are  immediately  arrested  ;  sometimes 
transported  to  the  colonies  ;  but  more  frequently  exiled  into  the 
country,  to  remain  under  the  inspection  of  some  police  agent  ; 
and  are  not  allowed  to  return  here,  without  the  previous  permis- 
sion of  our  government.  Those  of  them  who  are  upstarts,  and 
have  made  their  fortunes  since  the  revolution,  by  plunder,  or  as 
contractors,  are  still  more  severely  treated  ;  and  are  often  obliged 
to  renounce  part  of  their  ill-gotten  wealth  to  save  the  remain- 
der ;  or  to  preserve  their  liberty  or  lives.  A  revisal  of  their 
former  accounts,  or  an  inspection  of  their  past  transactions,  are. 
certain  and  efficacious  threats,  to  keep  them  in  silent  submission, 
as  they  all  well  understand  the  meaning  of  them. 

Even  foreigners,  whom  our  numerous  national  bankruptcies 
have  not  yet  disheartened,  are  subject  to  these  measures  of  rigour 
or  vigour  requisite  to  preserve  our  public  credit.  In  the  au  < 


190  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tumn,  last  year,  a  Dutchman  of  the  name  of  VandtT  Winkle, 
sold  out,  by  his  agent,  for  three  millions  of  iivres  (125,000/.)  in 
our  stock  on  one  clay,  for  which  he  bought  up  bills  upon  Ham- 
burgh and  London.  He  lodged  in  the  hotel  des  quatre  nations, 
Rue  Crenelle,  where  the  landlord,  who  is  &  patriot ,  introduced 
some  police  agents  into  his  apartment,  during  his  absence. — 
These  broke  open  all  his  trunks,  drawers,  and  even  his  writing- 
desk,  and,  when  he  entered,  seized  his  person,  and  carried  him 
to  the  Temple.  By  his  correspondence  it  was  discovered,  that 
all  his  money  was  to  be  brought  over  to  England  ;  a  reason  more 
than  sufficient  to  incur  the  suspicion  of  our  government.  Van- 
der  Winkel  spoke  very  little  French,  and  he  continued,  there- 
fore, in  confinement  three  weeks,  before  he  was  examined,  as 
our  secret  police  had  not  at  Paris,  any  of  its  agents,  who  spoke 
Dutch.  Carried  before  Fouche,  he  avowed  that  the  money  was 
destined  for  England,  there  to  pay  for  some  plantations  which  he 
desired  to  purchase  in  Surinam  and  Berbice.  His  interpreter 
advised  him,  by  the  orders  of  Fouche,  to  alter  his  mind  ;  and  as 
he  was  fond  of  colonial  property,  lay  out  his  money  in  planta- 
tions at  Cayenne,  which  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Surinam,  and 
where  government  would  recommend  him  advantageous  pur- 
chases. It  was  hinted  to  him  also,  that  this  v/as  a  particular  fa- 
vour, and  a  proof  of  the  generosity  of  our  government ;  as  his 
papers  contained  many  matters,  that  easily  might  be  construed 
to  be  of  a  treasonable  nature.  After  consulting  with  Schimmel- 
penninck,  the  ambassador  of  his  country,  he  wrote  for  his  wife 
and  children,  and  was  seen  safe  with  them  to  Bordeaux,  by  our 
police  agents,  who  had  hired  an  American  vessel  to  carry  them 
all  to  Cayenne.  This  certainly  is  a  new  method  to  populate  our 
colonies  with  capitalists. 


LETTER  XLIII. 

Paris ,  September^  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

HANOVER  has  been  a  mine  of  gold  to  our  government,  to 
its  generals,  to  its  commissaiies,  and  to  its  favourites.  Accord- 
ing to  the  boasts  of  Talleyrand,  and  avowal  of  Berthier,  we  have 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  ^       191 

•I- 

! 

drawn  from  it,  within  two  years,  more  wealth  than  has  been  paid 
in  contributions  to  the  Electors  of  Hanover  for  this  century  past  ; 
and  more  than  half  a  century  of  peace  can  restore  to  that  un- 
fortunate country.  It  is  reported  here,  that  each  person  employ- 
ed in  a  sitULition  to  make  his  fortune,  in  the  continental  states  of 
the  King  of  England  (a  name  given  here  to  Hanover,  in  courtesy 
to  Buonaparte)  was  laid  under  contribution,  and  expected  to 
make  certain  douceurs  to  Madame  Buonaparte  ;  and  it  is  said 
that  she  has  received  from  Mortier,  three  hundred  thousand 
livres,  and  from  Bernadotte  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  livres, 
besides  other  large  sums  from  our  military  commissaries,  trea- 
surers, and  other  agents  in  the  Electorate. 

General  Mortier  is  one  of  the  few  favourite  officers  of  Buo- 
naparte, who  have  distinguished  themselves  under  his  rivals, 
Pichegru  and  Moreau,  without  ever  serving  under  him.  Edward 
Adolph  Casimer  Mortier,  is  the  son  of  a  shopkeeper,  and  was 
born  at  Cambray,  in  1768.  He  was  a  shopman  with  his  father 
until  1791,  when  he  obtained  a  commission,  first  as  lieutenant  of 
Carabiniers,  and  afterwards,  as  captain  of  the  first  battalion  of 
volunteers  of  the  department  of  the  North.  His  first  sight  of  an 
enemy,  was  on  the  30th  of  April,  1792,  near  Quiverain,  where 
he  had  a  horse  killed  under  him.  He  was  present  in  the  battles 
of  Jemappes,  of  Nerwinde,  and  of  Pellenberg.  At  the  battle  of 
Houdscoote,  he  distinguished  himself  so  much,  as  to  be  promot- 
ed to  an  adjutant-general.  He  was  wounded  at  the  battle  of 
Fleures,  and  again  at  the  passage  of  the  Rhine,  in  1795,  under 
general  Moreau.  During  1796  and  1797,  he  continued  to  serve 
in  Germany,  but  in  1798  and  in  1799,  he  headed  a  division  in 
Switzerland  ;  from  which  Buonaparte  recalled  him  in  1 800,  to 
command  the  troops  in  the  capital  and  its  environs.  His  addresses 
to  Buonaparte,  announcing  the  votes  of  the  troops  under  him, 
respecting  the  consulate  for  life,  and  the  elevation  to  the  Imperial 
throne,  contain  such  mean  and  abject  flattery,  that,  for  a  true  sol- 
dier, it  must  have  required  more  self-command,  and  more  cou- 
rage to  pronounce  them,  than  to  brave  the  fire  of  a  hundred  can- 
nons ;  but  these  very  addresses,  contemptible  as  their  contents 
are,  procured  him  the  field-marshal's  staff.  Mortier  well  knew 
his  man,  and  that  his  cringing  in  anti-chambers  would  be  better 
rewarded,  than  his  services  in  the  field.  I  was  not  present  when 


192  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Mortier  spoke  so  shamefully  !  but  I  have  heard  from  persons 
who  witnessed  this  farce,  that  he  had  his  eyes  the  whole  time 
fixed  on  the  ground,  as  if  to  say  ;  "  I  grant  that  I  speak  as  a  des- 
picable being,  and  I  grant  that  I  am  so  ;  but  what  shall  I  do, 
tormented  as  I  am  by  ambition,  to  figure  among  the  great,  and 
to  riot  among  the  wealthy.  Have  compassion  on  my  weakness, 
or,  if  you  have  not,  I  will  console  myself  with  the  idea,  that  my 
meanness  is  only  of  the  duration  of  half  an  hour,  while  its  re- 
compence — my  rank — will  be  permanent. 

Mortier  married,  in  1799,  the  daughter  of  the  landlord  of 
the  Belle  Sam>age  inn,  al  Cobltntz,  who  was  pregnant  by  him,  or 
some  other  guest  of  her  futher.  She  is  pretty  but  not  handsome  ; 
and  she  takes  advantage  of  her  husband's  com/.laisance,  to  console 
herself  both  for  his  absence  and  infidelities.'  When  she  was  de- 
livered of  her  last  child,  Mortier  positively  declared,  that  he  had 
not  slept  with  her  for  twelve  montr.s,  and  the  babe  has,  indeed, 
less  resemblance  of  him,  than  of  Ms  valet  de  chambre.  The 
child  was  baptized  with  great  splendour  ;  the  Emperor  and  Em- 
press were  the  sponsors,  and  it  was  christened  by  cardinal 
Fesch.  Buonaparte  presented  Madame  Mortier,  on  .this  occa- 
sion, with  a  diamond  necklace,  valued  at  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  livres  (6,000/.) 

During  his  different  campaigns,  and  particularly,  during  his 
glorious  campaign  in  Hanover,  he  has  collected  property  to  the 
amount  of  stvui  millions  of  livres,  laid  out  in  estates  and  lands. 
He  is  considered  by  other  generals,  as  at>rave  captain,  but  an  in- 
different chief ;  and  among  our  Fashionables  and  other  courtiers, 
he  is  held  up  as  a  model  of  connubial  fidelity  ;  satisfying  him- 
self with  keeping  three  mistresses  cr.lv. 

There  was  no  truth  in  the  report,  that  his  recall  from  Hano- 
ver was  in  consequence  of  any  disgrace  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
a  new  proof  Buonaparte's  confidence  and  attachment.  He  was 
recalled  to  take  the  command  of  the  artillery  of  Buonaparte's 
household  troops,  the  moment  Pichegru,  Georges  and  Moreau, 
Were  arrested,  and  when  the  Imperial  title  had  been  resolved  on. 
More  resistance  against  this  innovation,  was,  at  that  time  expect- 
ed than  experienced. 

Bernadotte,  who  succeeded  Mortier  in  the  commar;d  of  cur 
•Army  hi  Hanover,  is  a  mar)  of  n  jlirlcvf'nt  f;tun)p.  His  f 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  1*93 

was  a  chairman,  and  he  was  born  at  Paris,  in  1773.  In  1799  he 
enlisted  in  the  regiment  called  La  Vcille  Marine,  where  the  revo- 
lution found  him  a  sergeant.  This  regiment  was  then  .quartered 
at  Toulon,  and  the  emissaries  of  anarchy  and  licentiousness  en- 
gaged him  as  one  of  their  agents.  His  activity  soon  destroyed 
all  discipline,  and  the  troops,  instead  of  attending  to  their  military 
duty,  followed  him  to  the  debates  and  discussions  of  the  Jacobin 
clubs. 

Being  arrested  and  ordered  to  be  tried  for  his  mutinous  and 
scandalous  behaviour,  an  insurrection  liberated  him,  and  forced 
his  accusers  to  save  their  lives  by  flight.  In  April,  1790,  he 
headed  the  banditti  who  murdered  the  governor  of  the  fort  St. 
Jean  at  Marseilles,  and  who  afterwards  occasioned  the  civil' war 
in  Comtat  Venaigin,  where  he  served  under  Jourdan,  known  by 
the  name  of  Cou/i-tctt,  or  cut-throat,  who  made  him  a  colonel^ 
and  his  aide-de-camp.  In  1794  fee  was  employed  as  a 
general  of  brigade,  in  the  army  of  the  Sambre  and  Meuse  ; 
and  during  the  campaigns  of  1795  and  1796  he  served  under 
another  Jourdan,  the  general,  without  much  distinction  ;  except 
that  he  was  accused  by  him  of  being  the  cause  of  all  the  disas- 
ters of  the  last  campaign,  by  the  complete  rout  he  suffered 
near  Neumark,  on  the  23d  of  August,  1795.  His  division  was 
ordered  to  Italy  in  1797,  where,  against  the  laws  of  nations,  be 
arrested  M  d'Antraigues,  who  was  attached  to  the  Russian  lega- 
tion.  When  the  Russian  ambassador  tried  to  dissuade  him 
from  committing  this  injustice,  and  this  violation  of  the  lights 
of  privileged  persons,  he  replied  ;  "  There  is  no  question  here 
of  any  other  right  or  justice  than  the  right  and  justice  of  power, 
and  I  am  here  the  strongest.  M.  d'Antraigues  is  our  enemy  ; 
were  he  victorious,  he  would  cause  us  all  to  be  shot.  I  repeat, 
I  am  here  the  strongest,  ct  nous  -verrons. 

After  the  peace  of  Carnpo  Formio,  Bernadotte  ~vvas  sent  as  an 
ambassador  to  the  court  of  Vienna,  accompanied  by  a  numerous 
escort  of  jacobin  propagators.  Having  procured  the  liberty  of 
Austrian  fiatriats,  whose  lives,  forfeit  to  the  law,  the  lenity  of  tire 
cabinet  of  Vienna  had  spared,  he  thought  that  he  might  attempt 
any  thing  ;  and,  therefore,  on  the  anniversary-day  of  the  fete 
for  the  levy  en  masse  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  capital,  he  insulted 
the  feelings  of  the  loyal,  and  excited  the  discontented  to  rebel- 


194  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

HOD,  by  placing  over  the  door  and  in  the  windows  of  his  house 
the  tri-coloured  flags.  This  outrage  the  Emperor  was  unable  to 
prevent  his  subjects  from  resenting.  Berna'dotte's  house  was  in- 
vaded, his  furniture  broken  to  pieces,  and  he  was  forced  to  save 
himself  at  the  house  of  the  Spanish  ambassador.  As  a  satisfac- 
tion for  this  attack,  provoked  by  his  own  insolence,  he  demand- 
ed the  immediate  dismissal  of  the  Austrian  minister,  Baron 
Thugut,  and  threatened,  in  case  of  refusal,  to  leave  Vienna,  which 
lie  did  on  the  next  day.  So  disgraceful  was  his  conduct  regard- 
ed, even  by  the  Directory,  that  this  event  made  but  little  impres- 
sion, and  no  alteration  in  the  continuance  of  their  intercourse 
with  the  Austrian  government. 

In  1799,  he  was,  for  some  few  weeks,  a  minister  of  the  war 
department,  from  which  his  incapacity  caused  him  to  be  dismis- 
sed. When  Buonaparte  intended  to  seize  the  reins  of  state,  he 
consulted  Bernadotte,  who  spoke  as  an  implacable  jacobin,  until 
a  douceur  of  three  hundred  thousand  Hvres  ( 12,000/.)  calmed  him 
a  little,  and  convinced  him  that  the  jacobins  were  not  infallible, 
or  their  governments  the  best  of  all  possible  governments.  In 
1801,  he  was  made  the  commander  in  chief  in  the  Western 
Department,  where  he  exercised  the  greatest  barbarities  against 
the  inhabitants,  whom  he  accused  of  being  still  Chouans  and 
Royalists. 

With  Angereau  and  Massena,  Bernadotte  is  a  merciless  plun- 
derer. In  the  summer  of  1796,  he  summoned  the  magistrates 
of  the  free  and  neutral  city  of  Nuremberg  to  bring  him,  under 
pain  of  military  execution,  within  twenty -four  hours,  two  mil- 
lions of  livres  (84,000/.).  With  much  difficulty  this  sum  was 
collected.  The  day  after  he  had  received  it,  he  insisted  upon 
another  sum,  to  the  same  amount,  within  another  twenty -four 
hours,  menacing,  incase  of  disobedience,  to  give  the  city  up  to 
a  general  pillage  by  his  troops.  Fortunately,  a  column  of  Aus- 
trians  advanced,  and  delivered  them  from  the  execution  of  Us 
threats.  The  troops  under  him  were,  both  in  Italy  and  in  Ger- 
many, the  terror  of  the  inhabitants  ;  and  when  defeated,  were, 
from  their  pillage  and  murder,  hunted  like  wild  beasts.  Berna 
dotte  has,  by  these  means,  within  ten  years,  become  master  of  a 
fortune  of  ten  millions  of  livres  (420,0001.) 

Many  have  considered  Bernadotte  a  revolutionary  fanatic:  buf. 
they  are  wrong;.     Money  engaged  him  in  the  cause  of  the  revo- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  195 

iution,  where  the  first  crimes  he  had  perpetrated,  fixed  him. 
The  many  massacres  under  Jourdan  the  cut-throat,  committed 
by  him  in  the  court  at  Venui^in,  no  doubt  display  a  most  san- 
guinary character  ;  a  lady,  however,  in  whose  house  in  La  Ven- 
dee, he  was  quartered  six  months,  has  assured  me,  that  to  judge 
from  his  convers.aion,  he  is  not  naturally  cruel  ;  but  that  his 
imagination  is  continually  tormented  with  the  fear  of  gibbets, 
which  he  knows  that  his  crimes  have  merited  ;  and  that  there- 
fore when  he  stabs  others,  he  thinks  it  commanded  by  the  neces- 
sity of  preventing  others  from  stabbing  him.  Were  he  sure  of 
impunity,  lie  would  perhaps  show  humanity  as  well  as  justice. 
Bcrnadotte  is  not  only  u  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour, 
but  a  Knight  of  the  Royal  Prussian  Order  of  the  Black  Eagle. 


LETTER    XLIV. 

r    1805. 


MY   LOKD, 

BUONAPARTE  has  taken  advantage  of  the  remark  of  Vol- 
taire, in  his  life  of  Louis  XIV.  that  this  Prince  owed  much  of  his 
celebrity  to  the  Well-distributed  pensions  among  men  of  letters 
in  France  and  in  foreign  countries.  According  to  a  list  shown 
me  by  Fontanes,  the  president  of  the  legislative  corps,  and  a  di- 
rector of  literary  pensions,  even  in  your  country  and  in  Ireland 
he  has  nine  literary  pensioners.  Though  the  names  of  your 
principal  authors  and  men  of  letters  are  not  unknown  to  me,  I 
have  never  read  nor  heard  of  those  I  saw  in  the  list,  except  two 
or  three  as  editors  of  some  newspapers,  magazines,  or  trifling  and 
scurrilous  party  pamphlets.  I  made  this  observation  to  Fon- 
tanes, who  replied,  that  these  men,  though  obscure,  had  during 
the  last  peace  been  very  useful,  and  would  be  still  more  so  after 
another  pacification  ;  and  that  Buonaparte  must  be  satisfied 
with  these  until  he  could  gain  over  men  of  greater  talents.  He 
granted  also  that  men  of  true  genius  and  literary  eminence  were, 
in  England,  more  careful  of  the  dignity  of  their  character  than 
those  of  Germany  and  Italy,  and  more  difficult  to  be  bought  over; 
he  added,  that  as  soon  as  the  war  ceased,  he  should  cross  the 
channel  on  a  literary  mission,  from  which  he  hoped  to  derive 


J-96  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

more  success  than  from  that  which  was  undertaken  three  years 
ago  by  Fieve. 

To  these  men  of  letters,  who  are  themselves,  with  their  wri- 
tings, devoted  to  Buonaparte,  he  certainly  is  very  liberal.— -Some 
he  has  made  tribunes,  prefects  or  legislators  ;  others  he  has  ap- 
pointed his  ministers  in  foreign  countries  ;  and  on  those  to  whom 
he  has  not  yet  been  able  to  give  places,  he  bestows  much  great- 
er pensions  than  any  former  sovereign  of  this  country  allowed  to 
a  Corneille,  a  Racine,  aBoileau,  a  Voltaire,  a  Crebillon,  a  d'Alem- 
bert,  a  Marmuntel,  and  other  heroes  of  our  literature,  and  ho- 
nours to  our  nation.  This  liberality  is  often  carried  too  far, 
and  thrown  away  upon  worthless  subjects,  whose  very  flattery 
displays  absence  of  taste  and  genius,  as  well  as  of  modesty  and 
shame.  To  a  fellow  of  the  name  Dagee,  who  sung  the  corona- 
tion of  Napaleone  the  first,  in  two  hundred  of  the  most  disgusting 
and  ill-digested  lines  that  ever  were  written,  containing  neither 
metre  nor  sense,  was  assigned  a  place  in  the  administration  of 
the  forest  department,  worth  twelve  thousand  livres  in  the  year, 
(500/.)  besides  a  present,  in  ready-money,  of  one  hundred  Na- 
poleone  d'ors.  Another  poetaster,  Barre,  who  has  served  and 
sung  the  chiefs  of  all  former  factions,  received  for  an  ode  of  for- 
ty lines  on  Buonaparte's  birth-day,  an  office  at  Milan,  worth 
twenty  thousand  livres  in  the  year,  (840/.)  and  one  hundred  Na- 
poleone  d'ors  for  his  travelling  expenses. 

The  sums  of  money  distributed  yearly  by  Buonaparte's  agents, 
for  dedications  to  him  by  French  and  foreign  authors,  are  still 
greater  than  those  fixed  for  regular  literary  pensions.  Instead 
of  discouraging  these  foolish  and  impertinent  contributions 
which  genius,  ingenuity,  necessity  or  intrusion  lay  on  his  vanity, 
he  rather  encourages  them.  His  name  is  therefore  found  in 
more  dedications  published  within  these  last  five  years,  than 
those  of  all  other  sovereign  Princes  of  Europe  taken  together 
for  this  last  century.  In  a  man,  whose  name,  unfortunately  for 
humanity,  must  always  live  in  history,  it  is  a  childish  and  unpar- 
donable weakness  to  pay  so  profusely  for  the  short  and  uncer- 
tain inmiortality  which  some  dull  or  obscure  scribbler  or  poetas- 
ter confers  upon  him. 

During  the  last  Christmas    holidays  I    dined  at  Madame  Re- 
misatu's,  in  company  with   Duroc.     The  question  turned  upon 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  197 

literary  productions,  and  the  comparative  merit  of  the  composi- 
tions of  modern  French  and  foreign  authors.  "  As  to  the  me- 
rits or  the  quality,"  said  Duroc,  "  I  will  not  take  upon  me  to 
judge,  as  I  profess  myself  totally  incompetent  ;  but  as  to  their 
size  and  quantity  I  have  tolerably  good  information,  and  it  will 
not  therefore  be  improper  in  me  to  deliver  my  opinion.  lam 
convinced  that  the  German  and  Italian  authors  are  more  nume- 
ous  than  those  of  my  own  country,  for  the  following  reasons.  I 
suppose,  from  what  I  have  witnessed  and  experienced  for  seme 
years  past,  that,  of  every  book  or  publication  printed  in  France, 
Italy,  and  Germany,  each  tenth  is  dedicated  to  the  Emperor  ; 
now,  since  last  Christmas,  ninety-six  German  and  seventy-one 
Italian  authors  have  inscribed  their  works  to  his  Majesty  and 
been  rewarded  for  it ;  while  during  the  same  period  only  sixty- 
six  Frenchmen  have  presented  their  offerings  to  their  sovereign  " 
For  my  part  I  think  Duroc's  conclusion  tolerably  just. 

Among  all  the  numerous  hordes  of  authors  who  have  been  paidr 
recompensed  or  encouraged  by  Buonaparte,  none  have  experienc- 
ed his  munificence  more  than  the  Italian  Spanicetti,  and  the 
German  Ritterstein.  The  former  presented  him  a  genealogical 
•able,  in  which  he  proved  that  the  Buonaparte  family,  before 
their  emigration  from  Tuscany  to  Corsica,  four  hundred  years 
ago,  were  allied  to  the  most  ancient  Tuscany  families,  even  to 
that  of  the  house  of  Medicis  :  and  as  this  house  has  given  two 
queens  to  the  Bourbons  when  sovereigns  of  France,  the  Buona- 
partes are  therefore  relatives  of  the  Bourbons  ;  and  the  sceptre 
of  the  French  empire  is  still  in  the  same  family^  though  in  a  more 
worthy  branch.  Spanicetti  received  one  thousand  louis  d'ors 
(-1000/0  in  gold,  a  pension  of  six  thousand  livres, (350/0  for  life, 
and  the  place  of  a  chef  du  bureaux,  in  the  ministry  of  the  home 
department  of  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  producing  eighteen  thousand 
livres  (7  jO/.)  yearly. 

Ritterstein,  a  Bavarian  genealogist,  firoved  the  pedigree  of  the 
Buonapartes  as  far  back  as  the  first  crusades,  and  that  the  name 
of  the  friend  of  Richard  Cceur  tie  Lion  was  not  Blondel,  but  Buo- 
naparte ;  that  he  exchanged  the  latter  for  the  former,  only  to 
marry  into  the  Plantagenet  family  ;  the  last  branch  of  which  has 
since  been  extinguished  by  its  intermarriage  and  incorporation. 
•with  the  house  of  Stuart,  and  that  therefore  Napoieoue  Buona- 

s  3 


198  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

parte  is  not  only  related  to  most  sovereign  princes  of  Europe,  but 
has  more  right  to  the  throne  of  Great-Britain  than  George  the 
Third,  being  descended  from  the  male  branch  of  the  Smarts  ; 
•while  this  prince  is  only  descended  from  the  female  branch  of 
the  same  royal  house.  Ritterstein  was  presented  with  a  snuff- 
box with  Buonaparte's  portrait  set  with  diamonds,  valued  at 
twelve  thousand  livres,  and  received  twenty-four  thousand  livres, 
ready  money,  together  with  a  pension  of  nine  thousand  livres 
(375/.)  in  the  year,  until  he  could  be  better  provided  for.  He  was, 
besides,  nominated  a  knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  It  cannot 
be  denied  but  that  Buonaparte  rewards  like  a  real  Emperor. 

But  artists  as  well  as  authors  obtain  from  him  the  same  en- 
couragement, and  expei ience  the  same  liberality.  In  our  dif- 
ferent museums  we  therefore  already  see  and  admire  upwards 
of  two  hundred  pictures,  representing  the  different  actions, 
scenes,  and  achievements  of  Buonaparte's  public  life.  It  is  true, 
they  are  not  all  highly  finished,  or  well  composed,  or  delineated, 
but  they  all  strike  the  spectators  more  or  less  with  surprise  or 
admiration  ;  and  it  is  with  us,  as  I  suppose  with  you,  and  every 
where  else,  the  multitude  decide  :  for  one  competent  judge  or 
real  connoisseur,  hundreds  pass,  who  stare,  gape,  are  charmed, 
and  inspire  thousands  of  their  acquaintance,  friends,  and  neigh- 
bours, with  their  own  satisfaction.  Believe  me,  Napoleone  the 
First  well  knows  the  age,  his  contemporaries,  and,  I  fear,  even 
posterity. 

That  statuaries  and  sculptors  consider  him  also  as  a  generous 
patron,  the  numerous  productions  of  their  chissels  in  France, 
Italy,  and  Germany,  having  him  for  their  object,  seem  to  evince, 
Ten  sculptors  have  already  represented  his  passage  over  the 
mount  St.  Bernard,  eighteen  his  passage  over  Pont  de  Locli,  and 
twenty- two  that  over  Pont  d'Arcole.  At  Rome,  Milan,  Turin, 
Lyons,  and  Paris,  are  statues  of  him  representing  his  natural 
size  ;  and  our  ten  thousand  municipalities  have  each  one  of  his 
busts  ;  without  mentioning  the  thousands  of  busts  all  over  Eu- 
rope, not  excepting  even  your  own  country.  When  Buonaparte 
sees  under  the  windows  of  the  Thuilleries  the  statue  of  Caesar 
placed  in  the  garden  of  that  palace,  he  cannot  help  saying  to 
iumself,  "  Marble  lives  longer  than  man."  Have  you  any  doubt 
that  his  ambition  and  vanity  extend  beyond  the  grave  ? 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  iw 

The  only  artist  I  ever  heard  of  who  was  disappointed  and  un- 
rewarded for  his  labour,  in  attempting  to  eternize  the  memory 
of  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  was  a  German  of  the  name  of  Schu- 
xnackcr.  It  is  indeed  allowed  that  he  was  more  industrious,  able, 
and  well-meaning,  than  ingenious  and  considerate.  He  did  not 
consider  that  it  would  be  no  compliment  to  give  \\\e  immortal  hero 
a  hint  of  being  a  mortal  man.  Sclmmacker  had  employed  near 
three  years  in  planning  and  executing  in  marble  the  prettiest 
model  of  a  sepulchral  monument,  I  have  ever  seen,  read  or  heard 
of.  He  had  inscribed  it,  The  future  Tomb  of  Buonaparte  the 
Great.  Under  the  patronage  of  Count  de  Beust,  he  arrived  here  ; 
and  I  saw  the  model  in  the  house  of  this  minister  of  the  Ger- 
man Elector  Arch-Chancellor,  where  also  many  French  artists 
"went  to  inspect  it.  Count  de  Beust  asked  de  Segur,  the  grand 
master  of  the  ceremonies,  to  request  the  Emperor  to  grant  Sclm- 
macker the  honour  of  showing  him  his  performance.  De  Segur 
advised  him  to  address  himself  to  Duroc,  who  referred  him  to 
Denon,  who,  after  looking  at  it,  could  not  help  paying  a  just  tri- 
bute to  the  execution  and  to  the  talents  of  the  artist,  though  he 
disapproved  of  the  subject,  and  declined  mentioning  it  to  the  em- 
pcror.  After,  three  months  attendance  in  this  capital,  and  all  pe- 
titions and  memorials  to  our  great  folks  remaining  unanswered, 
Schumacker  obtained  an  audience  of  Fouche,  in  which  he  asked 
permission  to  exhibit  his  model  of  Buonaparte's  tomb  to  the  pub- 
lic for  money,  so  as  to  be  enabled  to  return  to  his  country. 
"  Where  is  it  now  ?"  asked  Fouche.  "  At  the  minister's  of  the 
Elector  Arch-Chancellor,"  answered  the  artist.  "  But  where  do 
you  intend  to  show  it  for  money  ?"  continued  Fouche.  "  In  the 
Palais  Royal." — "  Well,  bring  it  there,"  replied  Fouche.  The 
same  evening  that  it  was  brought  there  Schumacker  was  arrest- 
ed by  a  police  commissary  ;  his  model  packed  up,  and  with  him- 
self put  under  the  care  of  two  gens-d'armes,  who  carried  them 
both  to  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine.  Here  the  Elector  of  Baden 
gave  him  some  money  to  return  to  his  home,  near  Aschaffen- 
burgh,  where  he  has  since  exposed  for  money  the  model  of  a 
grand  tomb  for  a  little  man.  I  have  just  heard  that  one  of  your 
countrymen  has  purchased  it  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  louis 
d'ors. 


200-  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  XLV 

Paris,  September ,  1805., 

MV    LORD, 

THOSE  who  only  are  informed  of  the  pageantry  of  our  court, 
of  the  expenses  of  our  courtiers,  of  the  profusion  of  our  Empe- 
ror, and  of  the  immense  wealth  of  his  family  and  favourites,  may 
easily  be  led  to  believe,  that  France  is  one  of  the  happiest  and 
most  prosperous  countries  in  Europe.  But  for  those  who  walk 
in  our  streets,  who  visit  our  hospitals,  who  count  the  number  oi' 
beggars  and  of  suicides,  of  orphans  and  of  criminals,  of  prisoners 
and  of  executioners,  it  is  a  painful  necessity  to  reverse  the  pic- 
ture, and  to  avow  that  no  where  comparatively  can  there  he 
found  so  much  collective  misery.  And  it  is  not  here,  as  in  other 
states,  that  these  unfortunates,  reduced,  or  guilty,  are  persons  of 
the  lowest  classes  of  society  ;  on  the  contrary,  many,  and,  I  fear, 
the  far  greater  part,  appertain  to  the  ci-dcvant  privileged  classes, 
and  descend  from  ancestors  noble,  respectable,  and  wealthy,  but 
by  the  revolution  have  been  degraded  to  misery  or  infamy,  and 
perhaps  to  both. 

When  you  stop  but  for'  a  moment  in  our  streets,  to  look  at 
something  exposed  for  sale  in  a  shop-window,  or  for  any  other 
cause  of  curiosity  or  want,  persons  of  both  sexes,  decently  dress- 
ed, approach  you,  and  whisper  to  you — "  Sir,  bestow  your  cha- 
rity on  the  Marquis,  or  Marchioness — on  the  Baron,  or  Baroness 
such-a-one,  ruined  by  the  revolution  ;"  and  you  sometimes  hear 
names  on  which  history  has  shed  so  brilliant  a  lustre,  that  while 
you  contemplate  the  deplorable  reverse  of  human  greatness, 
you  are  not  a  little  surprised  to  find,  that  it  is  in  your  power  to 
relieve  with  a  trifle  the  wants  of  a  grandson  of  an  illustrious  war- 
rior, before  whom  nations  trembled,  or  of  the  grand-daughter  of 
that  eminent  statesman,  who  often  held  in  his  hands  the  destiny 
of  empires.  Some  few  solitary  walks,  incognito^  by  Buonaparte, 
in  the  streets  of  his  capital,  would  perhaps  be  the  best  preserva- 
tive against  unbounded  ambition  and  confident  success,  that  phi- 
losophy could  present  to  unfeeling  tyranny. 

Some  author  has  written, "  that  want  is  the  parent  of  industry, 
and  wretchedness  the  mother  of  ingenuity."  I  know  that  you 
have  often  approved  and  rewarded  the  ingenious  productions  of 
my  emigrated  countrymen  in  England  j  but  here  their  labours 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  JOi 

and  their  endeavours  are  disregarded  :  and  if  they  cannot  or 
will  not  produce  any  thing  to  flatter  the  pride  or  appetite  of  the 
powerful  or  rich  upstarts,  they  have  no  other  choice  left  but  beg- 
gary or  crime,  meanness  or  suicide.  How  many  have  1  heard 
repent  of  ever  returning  to  a  country,  where  they  have  no  expec- 
tation of  justice  in  their  claim,  no  hope  of  relief  in  theif  neces- 
sities, where  death,  by  hunger,  or  by  their  own  hands,  is  the 
iinal  prospect  of  all  their  sufferings. 

Many  of  ourbillad-singers  are  disguised  emigrants  ;  and  I  know 
a  ci-devant  Marquis,  who  is,  incognito,  a  groom  to  a  contractor, 
the  son  of  his  uncle's  porter.  Our  old  pedlars  complain  that 
their  trade  is  ruined  by  the  Counts,  by  the  Barons,  and  Cheva- 
liers, who  have  monopolized  all  their  business.  Those  who 
pretend  to  more  dignity,  but  who  have  in  fact,  less  honesty,  are 
employed  in  our  billiard  and  gambling-houses.  I  have  seen  two 
music-grinders,  one  of  whom  was  formerly  a  captain  of  infantry, 
and  the  other  a  counsellor  of  parliament.  Every  day  you  may 
bestow  your  penny  or  halfpenny  on  two  veiled  girls  playing  on 
the  guitar  or  harp,  the  one  the  daughter  of  a  ci-devant  Duke, 
and  the  other  of  a  ci-devant  Marquis,  a  general  under  Louis 
XVI.  They  are  usually  placed,  the  one  on  the  Boulevards, 
and  the  other  in  the  Elysian  fields,  each  with  an  old  woman  by 
her  side,  holding  a  begging-box  in  her  hand.  I  am  told  one  of 
the  women  has  been  the  nurse  of  one  of  those  ladies :  What  a 
recollection,  if  she  thinks  of  the  past  in  contemplating  the  pre- 
sent! 

On  the  day  of  Buonaparte's  coronation,  and  a  little,  before  he 
set  out  with  his  Pope  and  other  splendid  retinue,  an  old  man  was 
walking  slowly  on  the  Quay  de  Voltaire,  without  saying  a  word, 
but  a  label  was  pinned  to  his  hat  with  this  inscription — "  I  had 
sixty  thousand  livrcs  rent,  (25,000/.)  ;  /  am  eighty  years  of  age  ; 
and  I  request  alms"  Many  individuals,  even  some  of  Buonaparte's 
soldiers,  gave  him  their  mite  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  observed, 
he  was  seized  by  the  police-agents,  and  has  not  since  been  heard 
of.  I  am-  told  his  name  is  de  la  Roche,  a  ci-devant  Chevalier  de 
St.  Louis,  whose  property  was  sold  in  1793,  as  belonging  to  an 
emigrant,  though  at  the  time  he  was  shut  up  here  as  a  prisoner, 
suspected  of  aristocracy.  He  has  since,  for  some  years,  been 
a  water-carrier ;  but  his  strength  failing,  he  supported  hjmsell 


202  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

lately  entirely  by  begging.  The  value  of  the  dress  of  one  of 
Buonaparte's  runnin.  footmen  mi&ht  have  been  sufficient  to  re- 
lieve him  for  the  probably  short  remainder  of  his  clays.  But  it 
is  more  easy  and  agreeable  in  this  country  to  bury  undeserved 
want  in  dungeons,  than  to  renounce  unnecessary  and  useless 
show  to  relieve  it.  In  the  evening,  the  remembrance  of  these 
sixty  thousand  livres  of  the  poor  Chevalier  deprived  me  of  all 
pleasure  in  beholding  the  60  thousand  lamps  decorating  and  illu- 
minating Buonaparte's  palace  of  the  Thuiiieiies. 

Some  of  the  emigrants,  whose  strength  of  body  age  lias  not 
impaired,  or  whose  vigour  of  mind  misfortunes  have  not  depres- 
sed, are  now  serving  as  officers  or  solclhrs  under  the  Emperor 
of  the  French,  after  having  for  years  fought  in  vain  for  the  cause 
of  a  king  of  France  in  the  brave  army  of  Concle.  Several  are  even 
doing  duty  in  Buonaparte's  household  troops,  where  I  know  one 
who  is  a  captain,  and  who,  for  distinguishing  himself  in  combat- 
ing the  republicans,  received  the  order  of  St.  Louis,  but  is  now 
made  a  knight  of  Napoleone's  republican  order,  the  Legion  of 
Honour,  for  bowing  gracefully  to  her  Imperial  Majesty  the  Em- 
press. As  he  is  a  man  of  real  honour,  this  favour  is  not  quite 
in  its  place  ;  but  I  am  convinced,  that  should  one  day  an  oppor- 
tunity present  itself,  he  will  not  miss  it,  but  prove  that  he  has 
never  been  misplaced.  Another  emigrant,  who  after  being  a 
page  of  the  Duke  of  Angouleme,  made  four  compaigns  as  an 
officer  of  the  Uhlans  in  the  service  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany, 
and  was  rewarded  with  the  military  order  of  Maria  Theresa,  is 
now  a  knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and  an  officer  of  the 
Mamelukes  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  Four  more  emi- 
grants have  engaged  themselves  in  the  same  corps  as  common 
Mamelukes,  after  being  for  seven  years  volunteers  in  the  legion 
of  Mirabeau,  under  the  Prince  de  Conde.  It  were  to  be  wished 
ihat  the  whole  of  this  favourite  corps  were  composed  of  returned 
emigrants.  I  am  sure  they  would  never  betray  the  confidence 
of  Napoleone,  but  they  would  also  never  swear  allegiance  to 
another  Buonaparte. 

While  the  humbled  remnants  of  one  sex  ot \\\Q  d-devant  pri- 
vileged classes  are  thus  or  worse  employed,  many  persons  of 
the  other  sex  have  preferred  domestic  servitude  to  courtly  splen- 
dour, and  are  chambermaids  or  governesses.  when_they  might 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  203 

have  been  maids  of  honour  or  ladies  in  waiting.     Mademoiselle 

de  R ,  daughter  of  Marquis  de  R-    •     ,  was  offered  a  place, 

as  a  maid  of  honour  to  Princess  Murat,  which  she  declined,  but 
accepted,  at  the  same  time,  the  offer  of  being  a  companion  of 
the  rich  Madame  Moulin,  whose  husband  is  a  ci-devant  valet  of 
Count  de  Brienne.  Her  father  and  brother  suffered  for  this 
choice  and  preference,  which  highly  offended  Buonaparte,  who 
ordered  them  both  to  be  transported  to  Guadaloupe,  under  pre- 
tence, that  the  latter  had  said,  in  a  coffee-house,  that  his  sister 
would  rather  have  been  the  housemaid  of  the  wife  of  a  ci-devant 
valet,  than  the  friend  of  the  wife  of  a  ci-devant  assassin  and  sep- 
tembrizer.  It  was  only  by  a  valuable  present  to  Madame  Buo- 
naparte, from  Madame  Moulin,  that  Mademoiselle  de  R 

was  not  included  in  the  act  of  proscription  against  her  father  and 
brother. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  returned  emigrants  have  also  been  ar- 
rested for  frauds  and  debts,  and  even  tried  and  convicted  of 
crimes.  But  they  are  proportionally  few,  compared  with  those 
who,  without  support,  and  perhaps  without  hope,  and  from  want 
of  resignation  and  submission  to  the  will  of  Providence,  have  in 
despair  had  recourse  to  the  pistol  or  dagger,  or  in  the  river  Seine 
buried  their  remembrance  both  of  what  they  have  been,  and  what 
they  were.  The  suicides  of  this  vicious  capital,  are  reckoned, 
upon  an  average,  to  amount  to  one  hundred  in  the  month  ;  and 
for  these  last  three  years,  one  tenth,  at  least,  have  been  emigrants 
of  both  sexes  ! 


LETTER  XLVI. 

Paris,  Se/tt  ember,  1805, 

MY  LOUD, 

NOBODY  here,  except  his  courtiers,  denies,  that  Buonaparte 
is  vain,  cruel,  and  ambitious  ;  but  as  to  his  private,  personal, 
or  domestic  vices,  opinions  are  various,  and  even  opposite. — » 
Most  persons  that  have  long  known  him,  assert,  that  women  are 
his  aversion  ;  and  many  anecdotes  have  been  told  of  his  r.imalu- 
rid  and  horrid  propensities.  On  the  other  hand,  his  seeming  at- 
•».?.chment  to  his  v;if?.  h  contradictory  to  these  rumours,  which 


204  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

certainly  are  exaggerated.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  it  was  to 
oblige  Barras,  and  to  obtain  her  fortune,  that  he  accepted  of  her 
hand,  ten  years  ago  ;  though  insinuating,  she  is  far  from  being 
handsome,  and  has  long  passed  the  period  of  inspiring  love  by 
her  charms  :  her  husband's  conduct  towards  her  may,  therefore, 
be  construed,  perhaps,  into  a  proof  of  indifference  towards  the 
\vhole  sex,  as  much  as  into  an  evidence  of  his  affection  towards 
her.  As  he  knew  who  she  71-a.v,  when  he  received  her  from  the 
chaste  arms  of  Barras,  and  is  not  unacquainted  with  her  subse- 
quent intrigues,  particularly  during  his  stay  in  Egypt,  policy 
may  influence  a  behaviour  which  has  some  resemblance  to  es- 
teem ;  he  may  choose  to  live  with  her,  but  it  is  impossible  he 
can  love  her. 

A  lady  very  intimate  with  Princess  Louis  Buonaparte,  has  as- 
sured me,  that  had  it  not  been  for  Napoleone's  singular  inclina- 
tion for  this  step-daughter  of  his,  he  would  have  divorced  his  wife, 
the  first  year  of  his  consulate  ;  and  that  indirect  proposals  on  that 
subject  had  already  been  made  her  by  Talleyrand  ;  it  was  then  re- 
ported, that  Buonaparte  had  his  eyes  fixed  upon  a  Russian  Prin- 
cess, and  that  from  the  friendship  which  the  late  Emperor  Paul  pro- 
fessed for  him,  no  obstacles  to  the  match  were  expected  to  be  en- 
countered at  St.  Petersburg!!.  The  untimely  end  of  this  prince, 
and  the  supplications  of  his  wife  and  daughter,  have  since  altered 
his  intent,  and  Madame  Napoleone  and  her  children  are  row,  if  I 
may  use  the  expression,  incorporated  and  naturalized  with  the 
Buonaparte  family. 

But,  what  has  lately  occurred  here,  will  serve  better  to  show, 
that  Buonaparte  is  neither  averse,  nor  indifferent  to  the  sex. — 
You  read  last  summer,  in  the  public  prints,  of  the  then  minister 
of  the  interior,  Chaptal,  being  made  a  Senator,  and  that  he  was 
succeeded  by  our  ambassador  at  Vienna,  Champagny.  This 
promotion  was  in  consequence  of  a  disgrace,  occasioned  by  his 
jealousy  of  his  mistress,  a  popular  actress,  Mademoiselle  George, 
one  of  the  handsomest  women  of  this  capital.  He  was  informed 
by  his  spies,  that  this  lady,  frequently,  in  the  dusk  of  the  even- 
ing, or  when  she  thought  him  employed  in  his  office,  went  to  the 
house  of  a  famous  milliner  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore ;  where, 
through  a  door  in  an  adjoining  passage,  a  person  carefully  avoid- 
ed shewing  his  face,  always  entered  immediately  before  or  after 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  206 

}'vr,  und  reir.amecl  as  long  as  she  continued  there.  The  house 
was  then,  by  his  orders,  beset  with  spies,  who  were  to  inform 
him  the  next  time  she  went  to  the  milliner's.  To  be  near  at 
Jiand,  he  had  hired  an  apartment  in  the  neighbourhood)  where, 
the  very  next  day,  her  visit  to  the  milliner's  was  announced  to 
him.  While  his  Secretary,  with  four  other  persons,  entered  the 
milliner's  house  through  the  street-door,  Chaptal,  with  four  of 
his  spies,  forced  the  door  of  the  passage  open  ;  which  was  no 
sooner  done,  than  the  disguised  gallant  was  found,  and  threat- 
ened in  the  most  rude  manner,  by  the  minister  and  his  compa- 
nions ;  he  would  have  been  still  worse  used,  had  not  the  unex- 
pected appearance  of  Duroc,  and  a  whisper  to  Chaptal,  put  a  stop 
to  the  fury  of  this  enraged  lover.  The  incognito  is  said  to  have 
been  Buonaparte  himself,  who,  the  same  evening,  deprived  Chap- 
tal of  his  ministerial  port-folio,  and  would  have  sent  him  to  Cay- 
enne instead  of  to  the  senate,  had  not  Duroc  dissuaded  his  sove- 
reign from  giving  an  eclat  to  an  affair, -which  it  would  "be  best  to 
bury  in  oblivion. 

Chaptal  has  never  from  that  day  approached  Mademoiselle 
George,  and,  according  to  report,  Napoleon e  has  also  renounced 
this  conquest  in  favour  of  Duroc  ;  who  is  at  least  her  nominal 
gallant.  The  quantity  of  jewels  with  which  she  has  recently 
been  decorated,  and  displayed  with  so  much  ostentation  in  the 
new  tragedy,  THE  TEMPLARS,  indicate,  however,  a  sovereign, 
rather  than  a  subject  for  a  lover.  And,  indeed,  she  already  treats 
the  directors  of  the  theatre,  her  comrades,  and  even  the  public, 
more  as  a  real  than  as  a  theatrical  princess.  Without  any  cause 
whatever,  but  from  a  mere  caprice  to  see  the  camp  on  the  coast, 
she  set  out  without  leave  of  absence,  and  without  any  previous 
notice,  on  the  very  day  she  was  to  play  ;  and  this  popular  and 
interesting  tragedy  was  put  off  for  three  weeks,  until  she  chose  to 
return  to  her  duty.  When  complaint  was  made  to  the  prefects 
of  the  palace,  now  the  governors  of  our  theatres,  Duroc  said,  that 
the  orders  of  the  Emperor  were,  that  no  notice  should  be  taken 
of  this  etourderie,  which  should  not  occur  again. 

Chaptal  was,  before  the  revolution,  a  bankrupt  chemist,  at 
Montpellier,  having  ruined  himself  in  the  search  after  the  philo- 
sopher's stone.  To  persons  in  such  circumstances,  with  great 


206  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

presumption,  some  talents,  but  no  principles,  the  revolution  could 
not,  with  all  its  anarchy,  confusion  and  crime,  but  be  a  real  bless- 
ing,  as  Chaptal  called  it  in  his  first  speech  at  the  Jacobin  Club. 
Wishing  to  mimic  at  Montpellier  the  taking  of  the  Bastille  at 
Paris,  he  in  May,  1 790,  seduced  the  lower  classes  and  the  suburbs 
to  an  insurrection,  and  to  an  attack  on  the  citadel,  which  the  go- 
vernor, to  avoid  all  effusion  of  blood,  surrendered  without  resist- 
ance. He  was  denounced,  by  the  municipality  to  the  National 
Assembly  for  these  and  other  plots,  and  attempts  ;  but  Robe- 
spierre and  otaer  Jacobins  defended  him,  and  he  escaped  even 
imprisonment.  During  1793  and  1794,  he  monopolized  the 
contract  for  making  and  providing  the  armies  with  gun-pow- 
der ;  a  favour  for  which  he  paid  Barrere,  Carnot,  and  other  mem- 
bers of  the  committee  of  Public  Safety,  six  millions  of  livres 
(250.000/.)  but  by  which  he  pocketed  thirty-six  millions  of  livres 
(1,500,000/.)  himself.  He  was,  under  the  Directory,  menaced 
with  a  prosecution  for  his  pillage,  but  bought  it  off,  by  a  douceur 
toRewbcl,  Barras,  and  Sieyes.  In  1799,  he  advanced  Buonaparte 
twflvc  millions  of  livres,  (50000/.)to  bribe  adherents  for  the 
new  revolution  he  meditated,  and  was  in  recompense,  instead  of 
inte  rest,  appointed  first  counsellor  of  state  ;  and  when  Lucien 
Buonaparte,  in  September,  1800,  was  sent  on  an  embassy  to 
Spain,  Chaptal  succeeded  him  in  the  ministry  of  the  interior. — 
You  may  see  by  this  short  account,  that  the  chemist  Chaptal 
has,  in  the  revolution,  found  the  true  philosophical  stone.  He 
now  lives  in  great  style,  and  has,  besides  three  wives  alive,  (from 
two  ot  whom  he  has  been  divorced)  five  mistresses,  with  each  a 
separate  establishment.  This  Chaptal  is  regarded  here  as  the 
?nost  moral  character  that  has  figured  in  our  revolution,  having 
yet  neither  committed  a  single  murder,  nor  headed  any  of  our 
massacres. 


LETTER  XLVII. 

Paris,  September,   1805. 

MY    LOfcD, 

I  HAVE  read  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Madrid,  circulate i 
among  the  members  of  our  foreign   diplomatic  corps,  whicl: 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  a  07 

draws  a  most  deplorable  picture  of  the  court  and  kingdom  of 
Spain.  Forced  into  an  unprofitable  and  expensive  war,  famine 
ravaging  some,  and  diseases  other  provinces  ;  experiencing  from 
allies  the  treatment  of  tyrannical  foes,  disunion  in  his  family, 
and  among  his  ministers,  his  Spanish  Majesty  totters  on  a  throne, 
exposed  to  the  combined  attacks  of  internal  disaffection  and 
external  plots,  with  no  other  support  than  the  advice  of  a.  favour- 
ite, who  is  either  a  fool  or  a  traitor,  and  perhaps  both. 

As  the  Spanish  monarchy  has  been  more  humbled  and  reduced 
during  the  twelve  years'  administration  of  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
than  during  the  whole  period,  that  it  has  been  governed  by  the 
Princes  of  the  house  of  Bourbon,  the  heir  of  the  throne,  the 
young  Prince  of  Asturias,  has,  with  all  the  moderation  consist- 
ent with  duty,  rank,  and  consanguinity,  tried  to  remove  an  up- 
start, universally  despised  for  his  immorality,  as  well  as  for  his 
incapacity  ;  and  who,  should  he  continue  some  years  longer 
to  rule  in  the  name  of  Charles  IV.  will  certainly  involve  his 
king  and  Ids  country  in  one  common  ruin.  Ignorant  and  pre- 
sumptuous even  beyond  upstarts  in  general,  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
treats  with  insolence  ail  persons  raised  above  him  by  birth  or  tal- 
ents, who  refuse  to  be  his  accomplices  or  valets.  Proud,  and 
certain  of  the  protection  of  the  queen,  and  of  the  weakness  of 
the  king,  by  him  the  Spanish  nobility  is  not  only  humbled,  pro- 
voked, and  wronged,  but  openly  defied  and  insulted. 

You  know  the  nice  principles  of  honour  and  loyalty  that  have 
always  formerly  distinguished  the  ancient  families  of  Spain. — 
Believe  me,  that,  notwithstanding  what  appearances  indicate  to 
the  contrary,  the  Spanish  Grandee,  who  ordered  his  house  to  be 
pulled  down,  because  the  rebel  constable  had  slept  in  it,  has  still 
many  descendants  ;  but  loyal  men  always  decline  to  use  that  vio- 
lence, to  which  rebels  always  resort.  Soon  after  the  marriage 
of  the  Prince  of  Asturia,  in  October,  1801,  to  his  cousin,  the 
amiable  Marie  .  Antoinette  Therese,  Princess  Royal  of  Naples, 
the  ancient  Spanish  families  sent  some  deputies  to  their  Royal 
Highnesses,  not  for  the  purpose  of  intriguing,  but  to  lay  before 
them  ttie  situation  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  inform  them  of  the  real 
cause  of  ail  disasters.  They  were  received  as  faithful  subjects  and 
true  patriots;  and  their  Royal  Highnesses  promised  every  support 


208  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

in  their  power  towards  remedying  the  tvil  complained  of.  and 
preventing,  if  possible,  the  growth  of  others. 

The  Princess  of  Asturia  is  a  worthy  grand-daughter  of  Ma- 
ria Therese,  of  Austria,  and  seems  to  inherit  her  character  as 
well  as  her  virtues.  She  agreed  with  her  Royal  consort,  that 
after  having  gained  the  affection  of  the  queen,  by  degrees,  it 
would  be  adviseable  for  her  to  insinuate  some  hints  of  the  danger 
that  threatened  their  country,  and  the  discontent  that  agitated 
the  people.  The  Prince  of  Asturia  was  to  act  the  same  part 
with  his  father,  as  the  Princess  did  with  his  mother.  As  there 
is  no  one  about  the  persons  of  their  Spanish  Majesties,  from  the 
highest  lord  to  the  lowest  servant,  who  is  not  placed  there  by  the 
favourite,  and  act  as  his  spies,  lie  was  soon  aware  that  he  had  no 
friend  in  the  heir  of  the  throne.  His  conversation  with  their 
Majesties  confirmed  him  in  this  supposition,  and  that  some  secret 
measures  were  going  on  to  deprive  him  of  the  place  he  occu- 
pied, if  not  of  the  Royal  favour.  All  visitors  to  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Asturia  were,  therefore,  watched  by  his  emissaries  j 
and  all  the  letters  or  memorials  sent  to  them  by  the  post,  were 
opened,  read,  and,  if  contrary  to  his  interest,  destroyed,  and  their 
writers  imprisoned  in  Spain,  or  banished  to  the  colonies.  These 
measures  of  injustice,  created  suspicion,  disunion,  and,  perhaps, 
fear,  among  the  members  of  the  Asturian  cabal,  as  it  was  called  : 
all  farther  pursuit,  therefore,  was  deferred  until  more  propitious 
times,  and  the  Prince  of  Peace  remained  undisturbed  and  in  per- 
fect security,  until  the  rupture  with  your  country  last  Autumn. 

It  is  to  be  lamented,  that  with  all  their  valuable  qualities  and 
feelings  of  patriotism,  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  do  not 
possess  a  little  dissimulation,  and  more  knowledge  of  the  world. 
The  favourite  tried  by  all  means  to  gain  their  good  opinion,  but 
his  advances  met  with  that  repulse  they  morally  deserved,  but 
which,  from  policy,  should  have  been  suspended  or  softened, 
with  hope  of  future  accommodation. 

BourKonville,  the  ambassador  of  our  court  to  the  court  of  Ma- 
drid, was  here  upon  leave  of  absence  when  war  was  declared  by 
Spain  against  your  country,  and  his  first  secretary,  Herman,  act- 
ed as  charge  d'affaires.  This  Herman  lias  been  brought  up  in 
Talleyrand's  office,  and  is  both  abler  and  more  artful  than  I3our- 
nonville :  he  poscsses  also  the  full  confidence  of  our  mihisterj.who, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  209 

in  several  secret  and  pecuniary  transactions,  has  obtained  many 
proofs  of  this  secretary's  fidelity  as  well  as  capacity.  The  views 
of  the  cabinet  of  St.  Cloud,  were,  therefore,  not  lost  sight  of,  nor 
its  interest  neglected  at  Madrid. 

I  Suppose  you  have  heard  that  the  Prince  of  Peace,  like  all 
other  ignorant  and  illiberal  people,  believes  that  no  one  can  be 
a  good  or  clever  man,  who  is  not  also  his  countryman,  and  that 
all  the  ability  or  probity  of  the  world  is  confined  within  the  limits 
of  Spain  ;  on  this  principle,  lie  equally  detests  France  and  Eng- 
land, Germany  and  Russia,  and  is,  therefore,  not  much  liked  by 
our  government,  except  for  his  imbecility,  which  makes  him  its 
tool  and  dupe.  His  disgrace  would  not  be  much  regretted  here, 
where  we  have  it  in  our  power  to  place  or  displace  ministers  in 
certain  states,  whenever,  and  as  often  as  we  like.  On  this  occa- 
sion, however,  we  supported  him,  and  helped  to  dissolve  the  ca- 
bal formed  against  him  ;  and  that,  for  the  following  reasons  : 

By  the  assurances  of  Bournonville,  Buonaparte,  and  Talley- 
rand had  been  led  to  believe,  that  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  As- 
tui  ia  were  well  affected  to  France,  and  to  them  personally  ;  and 
conceiving  themselves  much  more  certain  of  this,  than  of  the 
good  disposition  of  the  favourite,  though  they  did  not  take  a  di- 
rect part  against  him,  at  the  same  time  they  did  not  disclose 
what  they  knew  was  determined  on,  to  remove  him  from  the 
helm  of  affairs.  During  Bournonville's  absence,  however,  Her- 
man had  formed  an  intrigue  with  a  Neapolitan  girl,  in  the  suite 
of  tiie  Princess  of  Asturia,  who,  influenced  by  love  or  bribes,  in- 
troduced him  into  the  cabinet,  where  her  mistress  kept  her  cor- 
respondence with  her  Royal  parents.  With  a  pick-lock  key,  he 
opened  all  the  drawers,  and  even  the  writing-desk,  in  which,  h<f 
is  said  to  have  discovered  written  evidences,  that  though  the 
Princess  was  not  prejudiced  against  France,  she  had  but  an  in- 
different opinion  of  the  morality  and  honesty  of  our  present  gov- 
ernment, and  of  our  present  governors.  One  of  these  original 
papers,  Herman  appropriated  to  himself,  and  dispatched  to  this 
capital,  by  an  extraordinary  courier,  whose  dispatches,  more 
than  the  rupture  with  your  country,  forced  Bournonville  away  in 
a  hurry,  from  the  agreeable  society  of  gamesters  and  prostitutes 
chiefly  frequented  by  him  in  this  capital. 


210  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  'j 

It  is  not,  and  cannot  be  known  yet,  what  was  the  exact  plan  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  and  their  adherents  ;  but  u 
diplomatic  gentleman,  who  has  just  arrived  from  Madrid,  and 
who  can  have  no  reason  to  impose  upon  me,  has  informed  me  of 
the  following  particulars  : 

Their  Royal  Highnesses  succeeded  perfectly  in  their  endea- 
vours to  gain  the  well-merited  tenderness  and  approbation  of  their 
sovereigns,  in  every  thing  else,  but  when  the  favourite  was  men- 
tioned with  any  slight,  or  when  any  insinuations  were  thrown  out 
concerning  the  mischief  arising  from  his  tenacity  of  power,  and 
incapacity  of  exercising  it,  with  advantage  to  the  state.  The 
queen  was  especially  irritated,  when  such  was  the  subject  of  con- 
versation, or  of  remark  ;  and  she  finally  prohibited  it,  under  pain 
of  her  displeasure.  A  report  even  reached  their  Royal  High- 
nesses, that  the  Prince  of  Peace  had  demanded  their  separation 
and  separate  confinement.  Nothing  could,  therefore,  be  effect 
ed  to  impede  the  progress  of  wickedness  aucl  calamity,  but  by 
some  temporary  measure  of  severity.  In  this  disagreeable  di- 
lemma, it  was  resolved  by  the  cabal,  to  send  the  queen  to  the 
convent,  until  her  favourite  had  been  arrested  and  imprisoned  ; 
to  declare  the  Prince  of  Asturia  regent,  during  the  king's  illness. 
(his  Majesty  then  still  suffered  from  several  paralytic  strokes) 
and  to  place  men  of  talents  and  patriotism,  in  the  place  of  the 
creatures  of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  As  soon  as  this  revolution 
was  organized,  the  queen  would  have  been  restored  to  full  liberty, 
and  to  that  respect  clue  to  her  rank. 

This  plan  had  been  communicated  to  our  ambassador,  and  ap- 
proved of  by  our  government  ;  but  when  Herman,  in  such  an 
lionest  manner,  had  inspected  the  confidential  correspondence  of 
the  Princess  of  Asturia,  Bournonville  was  instructed  by  Talley- 
rand to  warn  the  favourite  of  the  impending  danger,  and  to  ad- 
vise him  to  be  beforehand  with  his  enemies.  Instead  of  telling 
the  truth,  the  Prince  of  Peace  alarmed  the  King  and  Queen  with 
the  most  absurd  fabrications ;  and  assured  their  Majesties,  that 
their  son  and  daughter-in-law,  had  determined,  not  only  to  de- 
!  throne  them,  but  to  keep  them  prisoners  for  life,  after  they  had 
been  forced  to  witness  his  execution. 

Indolence  and  weakness  are  often  more   fearful  than  guilt. — 
Every  thing  that  he  said,  was  at  once  believed  ;  the  Prince  and 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  2JU 

Princess  were  ordered  under  arrest  in  their  own  apartments,  with  - 
out  permission  to  see  or  correspond  with  any  body  ;  and  so  cer- 
tain was  the  Prince  of  Peace  of  a  complete  and  satisfactory  re- 
venge for  the  attempt  against  his  tyranny,  that  a  frigate  at  Cadiz 
v/as  ready  waiting  to  carry  the  Princess  of  Astuiia  back  to  Na- 
ples. All  Spaniards,  who  had  the  honour  of  their  sovereigns 
and  of  their  country  at  heart,  lamented  these  rash  proceedings  ; 
but  no  one  dared  to  take  any  measures  to  counteract  them.  At 
last,  however,  the  Duke  of  Montemar,  grand  officer  to  the 
Prince  of  Astmias,  demanded  an  audience  of  their  Majesties,  iii 
the  presence  of  the  favourite.  He  began,  by  begging  his  sove- 
reign to  recollect,  that  for  the  place  he  occupied,  he  was  indebted 
to  the  Prince  of  Peace  ;  and  he  called  upon  him  to  declare,  whe- 
ther he  hud  ever  had  reason  to  suspect  him  either  of  ingratitude 
or  disloyalty.  Being  answered  in  the  negative,  he  said,  that 
though  his  present  situation  and  office  near  the  heir  of  the  throne 
was  the  pride  and  desire  of  his  life,  he  would  have  thrown  it  up 
the  instant  that  he  had  the  least  ground  to  suppose,  that  this 
Prince  ceased  to  be  a  dutiful  son  and  subject  ;  but  so  far  from 
this  being  the  case,  he  had  observed  him  in  his  most  unguarded 
moments — in  moments  of  conviviality,  had  heard  him  speak  of 
his  Royal  parents,  with  as  much  submission  and  respect,  as  if  he 
had  been  in  their  presence.  "  If,"  continued  he,  "  the  Prince 
of  Peace  has  said  otherwise,  he  has  misled  his  king  and  his 
queen,  being,  no  doubt,  deceived  himself.  To  overthrow  a 
throne,  and  to  seize  it,  cannot  be  done  without  accomplices, 
without  arms,  without  money.  Who  are  the  conspirators,  hail- 
ing the  Prince  as  their  chief  ?  I  have  heard  no  name  but  that 
of  the  lovely  Princess,  his  consort,  the  partaker  of  his  sentiments, 
as  well  as  of  his  heart.  And  his  arms  ?  They  are  in  the  hands 
of  those  guards,  his  Royal  parent  has  given  to  augment  the  ne- 
cessary splendour  of  his  rank.  And  as  to  his  money  ?  He  has 
none  but  what  is  received  from  Royal  and  paternal  munificence 
and  bounty.  You,  my  Prince,"  said  he  to  the  favourite,  (who 
seemed  much  offended  at  the  impression  the  speech  made  on 
their  Majesties)  "  will  one  day  thank  me,  if  I  am  happy  enough 
to  dissuade  dishonourable,  impolitic,  or  unjust  resentments.  Of 
the  approbation  of  posterity  I  am  certain." "  If,"  interrupted 


212  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  favourite,  "  the  Prince  of  Asturia  and  his  consort  will  give 
up  their  bad  counsellors,  I  hope  their  Majesties  will  forget  and 
forgive  every  thing  with  myself." — "  Whether  their  Royal 
Highnesses,"  replied  the  Duke  of  Montemar,  "  have  clone  any 
thing  that  deserves  forgiveness,  or  whether  they  have  any  coun- 
sellors I  do  not  know,  and  am  incompetent  to  judge  ;  but  I  am 
ranch  mistaken  in  the  character  of  their  Royal  Highnesses,  if 
they  wish  to  purchase  favour  at  the  expense,  of  confidence  and 
honour.  An  order  from  his  Majesty  may  immediately  clear  up 
this  doubt."  The  Prince  of  Peace  was  then  ordered  to  write,  in 
the  name  of  the  King,  to  his  children,  in  the  manner  he  propos- 
ed, and  to  command  an  answer  by  the  messenger.  In  half  an 
hour  the  messenger  returned,  with  a  letter  addressed  to  the  fa- 
vourite, containing  only  these  lines  :  "  A  King  of  Spain  is  well 
aware  that  a  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  can  have  no  answer 
to  give  to  such  proposals,  or  to  such  questions."  After  six  days 
arrest,  and  after  the  Prince  of  Peace  had,  in  vain,  endeavoured  to 
discover  something  to  inculpate  their  Royal  Highnesses,  they 
were  invited  to  court,  and  reconciled  both  to  him  and  their  Royal 
parents. 


LETTER  XLVIII. 

Paris,   Sc jit  ember,    1805. 

MY   LORD, 

I  WILL  add,  in  this  letter,  to  the  communication  of  the  gen- 
tleman, mentioned  in  my  last,  what  I  remember  myself  of  the 
letter,  which  was  circulated  among  our  diplomatists,  concerning 
the  intrigues  at  Madrid. 

The  Prince  of  Peace,  before  he  listened  to  the  advice  of  Duke 
de  Montemar,  had  consulted  Bournonville,  who  dissuaded  all 
violence,  and,  is  much  as  possible,  all  noise.  This  accounts  for 
the  favourite's  pretended  moderation  on  this  occasion.  But 
though  he  was  externally  reconciled,  and,  as  was  reported  at 
Madrid,  had  atvorn  his  reconciliation  cntn  by  taking  the  sacrament, 
all  the  undertakings  of  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia,  were 
strictly  observed  and  reported  by  the  spies  whom  he  had  placed 
round  their  Royal  Highnesses.  Vain  of  his  success  and  victory, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  213 

he  even  lost  that  respectful  demeanour,  which  a  good,  nay,  a 
well-bred  subject  always  shows  to  the  heir  of  the  throne,  and  the 
Princes  related  to  his  sovereign.  He  sometimes  behaved  with  a 
premeditated  familiarity,  and  with  an  insolence  provoking  or  de- 
fying resentment.  It  was  on  the  days  of  great  festivities,  when 
the  court  was  most  brilliant,  and  the  courtiers  most  numerous, 
that  he  took  occasion  to  be  most  arrogant  to  those,  whom  he 
traitorously  and  audaciously  clured  to  call  his  rivals.  On  the  9th 
of  last  December,  at  the  celebration  of  the  queen's  birth-day,  his 
conduct  towards  their  Royal  Highnesses  excited  such  general 
indignation,  that,  the  remembrance  of  the  occasion  of  the  fete, 
and  the  presence  of  their  sovereigns  could  not  repress  a  murmur 
which  made  the  favourite  tremble.  A  signal  from  the  prince  of 
Asturia  would  then  have  been  sufficient  to  have  caused  the  inso- 
lent upstart  to  be  seized  and  thrown  out  of  the  window.  I  am  told 
that  some  of  the  Spanish  grandees  laid  even  their  hands  on  their 
swords,  fixed  their  eyes  on  the  heir  of  the  throne,  asifto  say, 
"  command,  and  your  unworthy  enemy  shall  exist  no  more." 

To  prepare,  perhaps,  the  royal  and  paternal  mind  for  deeds 
which  contemporaries  always  condemn,  and  posterity  will  always 
reprobate,  .the  Prince  of  Peace  procured  a  history  to  be  written 
in  his  Qvjn  way  and  manner  ^  of  Don  Carlos,  the  unfortunate  son 
of  the  barbarous  and  unnatural  Philip  II  :  but  the  queen's  con- 
fessor, though,  like  all  her  other  domestics,  a  tool  of  the  favour- 
ite, threw  it  into  the  fire  with  reproof,  saying,  "that  Spain  did 
not  remember  in  Philip  II.  the  grand  and  powerful  monarch, 
but  abhorred  in  him  the  royal  assassin  ;"  adding,  "  that  no  laws 
human  or  divine,  no  institutions,  no  supremacy  whatever,  could 
authorise  a  parent  to  stain  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  his  chil- 
dren."— These  anecdotes  are  sufficient  both  to  elucidate  the  in- 
veteracy of  the  favourite,  the  abject  state  of  the  heir  to  the 
throne,  and  the  incomprehensible  infatuation  of  the  king  and 
queen. 

Our  ambassador  in  the  mean  time  dissembled  always  with  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  ;  and  even  made  them  under- 
stand that  he  disapproved  of  those  occurrences  so  disagreeable 
to  them  ;  but  he  neither  offered  to  put  an  end  to  them,  nor  to 
be  a  mediator  for  a  perfect  reconciliation  with  their  sovereigns, 
He  was  guided  by  no  other  motive,  but  to  keep  the  favourite  in 


214  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

subjection  and  alarm,  by  preserving  a  correspondence  with  his 
rivals.  That  this  was  the  case  and  the  motive,  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed, from  the  financial  intrigue  he  carried  on  in  the  beginning  oi 
last  month. 

Foreigners  have  but  an  imperfect  or  erroneous  idea  of  the 
amount  of  the  immense  sums  Spain  has  paid  to  our  government, 
in  loans,  in  contributions,  in  donations,  and  in  subsidies.  Since 
the  reign  of  Buonaparte,  or  for  these  last  five  years,  upwards  of 
half  the  revenue  of  the  Spanish  monarchy,  has  either  been 
brought  into  our  national  treasury,  or  into  the  privy  purse  of  the 
Buonaparte  family.  Without  the  aid  of  Spanish  money,  neither 
would  our  gun-boats  have  been  built,  our  fleets  equipped,  or  our 
armies  paid.  The  dreadful  situation  of  the  Spanish  finances  is 
therefore  not  surprising. — It  is  indeed  still  more  surprising  that 
a  general  bankruptcy  has  not  already  involved  the  Spanish  nation 
in  a  general  ruin. 

When,  on  his  return  from  Italy,  the  recall  of  the  Russian  ne- 
gotiator, and  the  preparations  of  Austria  convinced  Buonaparte  of 
the  probability  of  a  continental  war,  our  troops  on  the  coast  had 
not  been  paid  for  two  months,  and  his  Imperial  ministers  of 
finances  had  no  funds  tither  to  discharge  the  arrears,  or  to  pro- 
vide for  future  payments,  until  the  beginning  of  year  XIV.  or 
the  22d  instant :  Bournonviiie  was  therefore  ordered  to  demand 
peremptorily  from  the  cabinet  of  Madrid,  forty  millions  of  livres, 
(1,666,000/.)  in  advance  upon  future  subsidies.  Half  of  that 
sum  had  indeed  shortly  before  arrived  at  Cadiz  from  America, 
but  much  more  was  due  by  the  Spanish  government  to  its  own 
creditors,  and  promised  them  in  payment  of  old  debts.  The 
Prince  of  Peace,  in  consequence,  declared  that,  however  much 
he  wished  to  oblige  the  French  government,  it  was  utterly  im- 
possible to  procure,  much  less  to  advance  such  sums.  Bournon- 
viiie then  became  more  assiduous  than  ever  about  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Asturia  ;  and  he  had  the  impudence  to  assert,  that 
they  had  promised,  if  their  friends  were  at  the  head  of  affairs,  to 
satisfy  the  wishes  and  expectation  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French, 
by  seizing  the  treasury  at  Cadiz,  and  paying  the  state  creditors  in 
-vales  deinero  ;  notes  hitherto  payable  in  cash,  and  never  at  a  dis- 
count. The  stupid  favourite  swallowed  the  palpable  bait;  four 
millions  in  dollars  were  sent  under  an  escort  to  this  country, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  215 

While  the  Spanish  notes  instantly  fell  to  a  discount  of,  at  first,  at 
four  and  afterwards  of  six  per  cent,  and  probubly  will  fall  lower 
still,  as  no  treasures  are  expected  from  America  this  autumn . 
It  was  with  two  millions  of  these  dollars  that  the  credit  of  the 
bank  of  France  was  restored,  or  at  least,  for  some  time,  enabled  to 
reassume  its  payments  in  specie.  Thus  wretched  Spain  pays 
abroad  for  the  forging  of  those  disgraceful  fetters,  which  op- 
presses her  at  home;  and  supports  a  foreign  tyranny,  which 
finally  must  produce  domestic  misery  as  well  as  slavery. 

When  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  were  informed  of 
the  scandalous  and  false  assertion  of  Bournonville,  they  and  their 
adherents  not  only  publicly  and  in  all  societies  contradicted  it,  but 
affirmed,  that  rather  than  obtain  authority  or  influence  on  such 
ruinous  terms,  they  would  have  consented  to  remain  discarded 
and  neglected  during  their  lives.  They  took  the  more  care  to 
have  their  sentiments  known  on  this  subject,  as  our  ambassador's 
calumny  had  hurt  their  popularity.  It  was  then  first  that,  to  re- 
venge the  shame  with  which  his  duplicity  had  covered  him, 
Bournonville  permitted  and  persuaded  the  Prince  of  Peace  to  be- 
gin the  chastisement  of  their  royal  highnesses  in  the  persons  of 
their  favourites.  Duke  de  Montemar,  the  grand  officer  to  the 
Prince  of  Asturia;  Marquis  de  Villa  Franca,  the  grand  equerry 
to  the  Princess  of  Asturia  ;  Count  de  Minanda,  chamberlain  to 
the  king  j  and  the  countess  Dowager  Del  Monte,  with  six  other 
court  ladies  and  four  other  noblemen,  were  therefore  exiled  from 
Madrid  into  different  provinces,  and  forbid  to  reside  in  any  filace 
within  twenty  leagues  of  the  residence  of  the  royul  family.  Ac- 
cording to  the  last  letters  and  communications  from  Spain,  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Asturia  had  not  appeared  at  court  since 
the  insult  offered  them  in  the  disgrace  of  thtir  friends,  and  were 
resolved  not  to  appear  in  any  place  where  they  might  be  likely 
to  meet  with  the  favourite. 

Among  our  best  informed  politicians  here,  it  is  expected  that 
a  revolution  and  a  change  of  dynasty  will  be  the  issue  of  this,  our 
poiidcal  embryo  in  Spain.  Napoleone  has  more  than  once  in- 
directly hinted,  that  the  Buonaparte  dynasty  will  never  be  firm 
and  fixed  in  France,  as  long  as  any  Bourbons  reign  in  Spain  or 
Italy.  Should  he  prove  victorious  in  ti.c.  present  continental 
contest,  another  peace,  and  not  the  most  advantageous,  will  again 


216  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

be  signed  with  your  country — a  peace,  which,  I  fear,  will  leave 
him  absolute  master  of  all  continental  states.  His  family  arrange- 
ments are  publicly  avowed  to  be  as  follow  :-- Mis  third  brother, 
Louis,  and  his  sons,  are  to  be  the  heirs  of  the  French  Empire. 
Joseph  Buonaparte  is,  at  the  death  or  resignation  of  Napoleone; 
to  succeed  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  including  Naples.  Lucien, 
though  at  present  in  disgrace,  is  considered  as  the  person  desti- 
ned to  supplant  the  Bourbons  in  Spain  ;  where,  during  his  em- 
bassy in  1800  and  1801,  he  formed  certain  connections,  which 
Napolconc  still  keeps  up  and  preserves.  Holland  will  be  the  in- 
heritance of  Jerome,  should  Napoleone  not  live  long  enough  to 
extend  his  power  to  Great  Britain.  Such  are  the  modest  preten- 
sions our  Imperial  courtfcrs  bestow  upon  the  family  of  our  sove- 
reign. 

As  to  the  Prince  cf  Peace,  he  is  only  an  imbecile  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  our  intriguers  and  innovators,  which  they 
make  use  of  as  long  as  they  find  it  necessary  ;  and  when  that 
ceases  to  be  the  case,  break  it  and  throw  it  away.  This  idiot  is 
made  to  believe,  that  both  his  political  and  physical  existence  de- 
pends entirely  upon  our  support  ;  and  lie  has  infused  the  same 
ridiculous  notion  into  his  accomplices  and  adherents.  Guilt,  ig- 
norance, and  cowardice  thus  misled,  may,  directed  by  art,  in- 
terest and  craft,  perform  wonders  to  entangle  themselves  in  the 
destruction  of  their  country. 

Bournonvillc,  our  present  ambassador  at  Madrid,  is  the  son  of 
a  porter,  and  was  a  porter  himself,  when  he,  in  1770,  enlisted  as 
a  solciier  in  one  of  our  regiments,  serving  in  the  East-Indies. 
Having  there  collected  some  pillage,  he  purchased  the  place  of 
a  major  in  the  militia  of  the  Island  of  Bourbon,  but  was,  for 
his  immorality,  broken  by  the  governor.  Returning  to  France,  he. 
bitterly  complained  of  this  hjjustice ;  and  after  much  cringing 
in  the  anti-chambers  of  ministers,  he  obtained,  at  lust,  Iht  cross 
of  St  Louis,  as  a  kind  of  indemnity.  About  the  -same 
time  he  also  bought  with  his  Indian  wealth,  the  .place  of 
an  officer  in  the  Swiss  guard  of  Monsieur,  the  present  Louis 
XVIII.  Being  refused  admittance  into  any  genleel  societies, 
he  resorted  with  Barras,  and  other  disgraced  nobles,  to  gambling- 
houses  ;  and  he  even  kept  two  himself  when  the  revolution  took 
place.  He  had  at  the  same  time,  and  for  a  certain  interest,  ac!- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  2 IT 

vaticed  Madame  D'Estainvillc  money  to  establish  her  famous, 
or  rather  infamous  house,  in  the  Rue  de  Bonnes  Enfans,  near  the 
Palais  Royal  ;  a  house  that  soon  became  the  fashionable  resort 
of  our  friends  of  liberty  and  equality. 

In  1790,  Bournonville  offered  his  services,  as  aid-de-camp  to 
our  then  hero  of  great  ambition  and  small  capacity,  La  Fayette, 
who  declined  the  honour  ;  the  jacobins  were  not  so  nice.  In  1792 
they  appointed  him  a  general  under  Dumourier,  who  baptized 
him  his  Ajax.  This  modern  Ajax,  having  obtained  a  separate 
command,  attacked  Treves  in  a  most  ignorant  manner,  and  was 
worsted,  with  great  loss.  The  official  reports  of  our  revolutiona- 
ry generals  have  long  been  admired  for  their  modesty  as  well  as 
•veracity  ;  but  Bournonviile  has  almost  outdone  them  all,  not  ex- 
cepting our  great  Buonaparte.  In  a  report  to  the  National  Con- 
vention, concerning  a  terrible  engagement  of  three  hours,  near 
Grewenmacker,  Bournonviile  declares,  that  though  the  number 
of  the  enemy  killed  was  immense,  his  troops  got  out  of  the 
scrape  with -the  toss  of  only  the  little  finger  of  one  of  his  riflemen, 
On  the"  4th  of  February,  1793,  a  fortnight  after  the  execution  of 
Louis  XVL  he  was  nominated  minister  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment ;  a  place  which  he  refused,  under  a  pretence  that  he  was 
better  able  to  serve  his  country  with  his  sword  than  with  his  pen, 
having  already  been  in  one  hundred  and  twenty  battles;  where, 
he  did  not  enumerate  or  state.  On  the  14th  of  the  following 
March,  however,  he  accepted  the  ministerial  port  folio,  which 
he  did  not  keep  long,  being  delivered  up  by  his  Hector,  Dumou- 
rier, to  the  Austrians.  He  remained  a  prisoner  at  Olmutz  until 
the  22d  of  November,  1795,  when  he  was  included -among  the 
persons  exchanged  for  the  daughter  of  Louis  XVI.  -her  present 
Royal  Highness  the  Duchess  of  Angoulesme. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1796  he  had  a  temporary  command  of  the 
dispersed  remnants  of  JourdaiVs  army  ;  and  in  1797  he  was  sent 
as  a  French  commander  to  Holland.  In  1799  Buonaparte  ap- 
pointed him  an  ambassador  to  the  Court  of  Berlin  ;  and  in  1803 
removed  him  in  the  same  character  to  the  court  of  Madrid.  In 
Prussia  his  talents  did  not  cause  him  to  be  dreaded,  nor  did  his 
personal  qualities  make  him  esteemed.  In  France  he  is  laughed 
at  as  a  boaster,  but  not  trusted  as  a  warrior.  In  Spain  he  is  nei- 
ther dreaded  nor  esteemed,  neither  laughed  at  nor  courted  j  he 

u 


318  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

is  there  universally  despised.  He  studies  to  be  thought  a  gen- 
tleman ;  but  the  native  porter  breaks  through  the  veil  of  a  ridi- 
culously-affected, and  outre  politeness.  Notwithstanding  the 
complacent  grimaces  of  his  face,  the  self-sufficiency  of  his  looks, 
his  systematically-powdered  and  dressed  hair,  his  showy  dress, 
his  counted  and  short  bows,  and  his  presumptuous  conversation, 
teeming  with  ignorance,  vulgarity,  and  obscenity,  it  cannot  es- 
cape even  the  most  inattentive  observer. 

The  ambassador  Bournonville,  is  now  between  fifty  and  sixty 
years  of  age  ;  is  a  grand  officer  of  our  Imperial  Legion  of  Ho- 
nour ;  has  a  brother  who  is  a  turnkey,  and  two  sisters,  one  mar- 
ried to  a  taylor,  and  the  other  to  a  merchant,  who  cries  dogs'  and 
cats'  meat  in  our  streets. 


LETTER    XLIX. 

Paris,  September,  1805. 
MY  LORD, 

BUONAPARTE  did  not  at  first  intend  to  take  his  wife  with 
him,  when  he  set  out  for  Strasburgh  ;  but  her  tears,  the  effect  of 
her  tenderness  and  afi/irehension  for  his  person,  at  last  altered  his 
resolution.  Madame  Napoleone,  to  tell  the  truth,  does  not  like 
much  to  be  in  the  power  of  Joseph,  nor  even  in  that  of  her  son- 
in-law,  Louis  Buonaparte,  should  any  accident  make  her  a  widow. 

During  the  Emperor's  absence,  the  former  is  the  president  of 
the  Senate  ;  and  the  latter  the  governor  of  this  capital,  and  com- 
mandu'  of  his  troops  in  the  interior  ;  so  that  the  one  dictates  the 
Senatus  Consultum,  in  case  of  a  vacancy  of  the  throne,  and  the 
other  supports  these  civil  determinations  with  his  military  forces. 
Even  with  the  army  in  Germany,  Napoleone's  brother-in-law. 
Mural,  is  as  a  pillar  of  the  Buonaparte  dynasty,  and  to  prevent 
the  intrigues  and  plots  of  other  generals,  from  an  imperial  dia- 
dem ;  while  in  Italy,  his  son-in-law,  Eugenius  de  Beauharnois,  as 
a  viceroy,  commands  even  the  commander  in  chief  Massena. 
It  must  be  granted,  that  the  Emperor  has  so  ably  taken  his  pre- 
cautions, that  it  is  almost  certain  that,  at  first,  his  orders  will 
be  obeyed,  even  after  his  death  ;  and  the  will  deposited  by  him  in 
the  Senate,  without  opposition,  carried  into  execution.  These 
yery  precautions  evince,  however,  how  uncertain  and  precarious 
he  looks  upon  his  existence  to  be,  and  that,  notwithstanding  ?.d« 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  21  v, 

dresses  and  oaths,  he  apprehends  that  the  Buonaparte  dynasty 
will  not  survive  him. 

Most  of  the  generals  now  employed  by  him,  are  either  of  his 
own  creation,  or  men  on  whom  he  has  conferred  rank  and  wealth, 
winch  they  might  consider  unsafe  under  any  other  prince  but  a 
Buonaparte.  The  superior  officers,  not  included  in  the  above 
description,  are  such  insignificant  characters,  that  though  he 
makes  use  of  their  experience  and  courage,  he  does  not  fear 
their  views  or  ambition.  Among  the  inferior  officers,  and  even 
among  the  men,  all  those  who  have  displayed,  either  at  reviews 
or  in  battles,  capacity,  activity,  or  valour,  are  all  members  of  his 
Legion  of  Honour  ;  and  are  bound  to  him  by  the  double  tie  of 
gratitude  and  self-interest.  They  look  to  him  alone  for  future 
advancements,  and  for  the  preservation  of  the  distinction  they 
have  obtained  from  him.  His  emissaries  artfully  disseminate, 
that  a  Bourbon  would  inevitably  overthrow  every  thing  a  Buona- 
parte had  erected  ;  and  that  all  military  and  civil  officers,  re- 
warded and  favoured  by  Nupolcone  the  First,  will  not  only  be 
discarded, but  disgraced,  and  perhaps  punished  by  Louis  XVIII. 
Any  person  who  would  be  imprudent  enough  to  attempt  to 
prove  the  impossibility,  as  well  as  the  absurdity,  of  these  im- 
politic and  retrospective  measures,  would  be  instantly  taken  up 
and  shot  as  an  emissary  of  the  Bourbons. 

I  have  often  amused  myself  in  conversing  with  our  new  ge- 
nerals, and  new  officers  ;  there  is  such  a  curious  mixture  of  ig- 
norance and  information,  of  credulity  and  disbelief,  of  real  boast- 
ing vtnd  affected  modesty,  in  every  thing  they  say  or  do  in  com- 
pany ;  their  manners  are  far  from  being  elegant,  but  also  very 
distant  from  vulgarity  ;  they  do  not  resemble  those,  of  what  we 
formerly  called  gens  comma  iifaut  and  la  bonne  societe  /  nor  those 
of  the  Bourgeoises  or  the  lower  classes.  They  form  a  new  species 
of  fashionables,  and  a  haul  ton  imlitaire,  which  strikes  a  person, 
accustomed  to  courts,  at  first,  with  surprise,  and,  perhaps,  with 
indignation  ;  though,  after  a  time,  those  of  our  sex,  at  least,  be- 
•come  reconciled,  if  not  pleased  with  it,  because  there  is  a  kind  of 
military  frankness  interwoven  with  the  military  roughness.  Our 
ladies,  however,  (I  mean  those  who  have  seen  other  courts,  or 
remember  our  other  coteries)  complain  loudly  of  this  alteration 
of  address,  and  of  this  fashionable  innovation  ;  and  pretend  that 
«ur  military,  under  the  notion  of  being  frank,  are  rude,  and,  br 


220  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  negligence  of  their  manners  and  language,  are  not  only  of- 
fensive, but  inattentive  arid  indelicate.  This  is  so  much  the  more 
provoking  to  them,  as  our  imperial  courtiers  and  imperial  place- 
men do  not  think  themselves  fashionable,  without  imitating  our 
military  gentry,  who  take  Napoleone  for  their  exclusive  model 
and  chief  in  every  thing,  even  in  manners. 

What  I  have  said  above,  only  applies  to  those  officers,  whose 
parents  are  not  of  the  lowest  class,  or  who  entered  so  early  or  so 
young  into  the  army,  that  they  may  be  said  to  have  been  educated 
there  ;  and,  as  they  advanced,  have  assumed  the  ton  of  their  com- 
rades of  the  same  rank.  I  was  invited  sorr\e  time  ago,  to  a  wed- 
ding, by  a  jeweller,  whose  sister  had  been  my  nurse,  and  whose 
daughter  was  to  be  married  to  a  captain  of  Hussars,  quartered 
here.  The  bridegroom  had  engaged  several  other  officers  to  as- 
sist at  the  ceremony,  and  to  partake  of  the  fete  and  ball  that  fol- 
lowed. A  general  of  the  name  of  Liebeau  was  also  of  the  party, 
and  obtained  the  place  of  honour  by  the  side  of  the  bride's  mother. 
At  his  entrance  into  the  apartment,  I  formed  an  opinion  of  him, 
which  his  subsequent  conduct,  during  the  ball,  confirmed. 

During  the  dinner  he  seemed  to  forget  that  he  had  a  knife  and 
a  fork,  and  he  did  not  eat  of  a  dish,  (and  he  ate  of  them  all,  nume- 
rous as  they  were)  without  bespattering  or  besmearing  himself 
or  his  neighbours.  He  broke  two  glasses  and  one  plate,  and,  for 
equality  sake,  I  suppose,  when  he  threw  the  wine  on  the  lady  to 
his  right,  the  lady  to  his  left  was  inundated  with  sauces.  In  get- 
ting up  from  dinner,  to  take  cofiee  and  liqueur s^  according  to  our 
custom,  as  he  took  the  hand  of  the  mistress  of  the  house,  he 
seized  at  the  same  time  a  corner  of  the  napkin,  and  was  not 
aware  of  his  blunder,  till  the  destruction  of  bottles,  glasses,  and 
plates,  and  the  screams  of  the  ladies,  informed  him  of  the  havoc 
and  terror  his  awkward  gallantry  had  occasioned. 

When  the  ball  began,  he  was  too  vain  of  his  rank  and  prece- 
tlency  to  suffer  any  one  else  to  lead  the  bride  down  the  firs'. 
dance  ;  but  she  was  not,  I  believe,  much  obliged  to  him  for  hi;s 
politeness  ;  it  cost  her  the  tail  of  her  wedding  gown  and  a  broken 
nail,  and  she  continued  lame  during  the  remainder  of  the  night. 
In  making  an  apology  to  her  for  his  want  of  dexterity,  and  assur- 
ing her  that  he  was  not  so  awkward  in  handling  the  enemies  ol 
his  country  in  battle,  as  in  handling  the  friends  he  esteemed  in.  a 
dance,  he  gave  no. quarters  to  an  old  maiden  aunt?  whom,  in  tht 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  ^ 

violence  ot"  his  gesticulation,  he  knocked  down  with  his  elbow, 
and  laid  sprawling  on  the  ground.  He  was  sober  when  these  ac- 
cidents literally  occurred. 

Of  this  original  I  collected  the  following  particulars  :  Before 
the  revolution  he  was  a  soldier  in  the  regiment  of  Flanders,  from 
which  he  deserted  and  became  a  corporal  in  another  regiment  : 
in  1793,  he  was  a  drum-major  in  one  of  the  battalions  in  garri- 
son at  Paris.  You  remember  the  struggles  of  factions  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  May,  and  in  the  beginning  of  June  the  same  year, 
when  Brissot  and  his  accomplices  were  contending  with  Marat, 
Robespierre,  and  their  adherents,  for  the  reins  of  power.  On 
the  first  of  June,  the  latter  party  could  not  get  a  drummer  to  beat 
the  alarm,  though  they  offered  money  and  advancement ;  at  last 
Robespierre  stept  forward  to  Liebeau,  and  said,  "  Citizen,  beat 
the  alarm  march,  and  to  day  you  shall  be  nominated  a  general.'5 
Liebeau  obeyed,  Robespierre  became  victorious,  and  kept  his 
promise ;  and  thus  my  present  associate  gained  his  rank.  He 
has  since  been  employed  under  Jourdanin  Germany,  and  under 
Le  Courbe  in  Switzerland.  When  under  the  former,  he  was  or- 
dered to  retreat  towards  the  Rhine,  he  pointed  out  the  march 
route  to  his  division,  according  to  his  geographical  knowledge, 
but  mistook  upon  the  map  the  river  Maine  for  a  turnpike  road, 
and  commanded  the  retreat  accordingly.  Ever  since,  our  troops 
have  called  that  river  La  chamce  de  Liebcau*  He  was  not  more  for- 
lunate  in  Helvetia.  Being  ordered  to  cross  one  of  the  mountains, 
he  marched  his  men  into  a  glacier,  where  twelve  perished,,  be-, 
fore  he  was  aware  of  his  mistake. 

Being  afterwards  appointed  a  governor  of  Blois,  he  there  be- 
came a  petty  insupportable  tyrant,  and  laid  all  the  inhabitants  in- 
discriminately under  arbitrary  contribution.  Those  who  refused 
to  pay,  were  imprisoned  as  aristocrats,,  and  their  property  confis- 
cated in  the  name  and  on  the  part  of  the  nation  ;  that  is  to  say, 
he  appropriated  to  himself,  in  the  name  of  the  nation,  every  thing 
that  struck  his  fancy  ;  and  if  any  complaints  were  made.,  the 
owners  wers  seized,  and  sent  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  at 
Paiis,  to  be  condemned,  as  the  correspondents  or  adherents  of 
the  royalists  of  La  Vendee.  After  the  death  of  Robespierre,  he 
was  deprived  of  this  profitable  place,  in  which,  during  the  short 
space  of  eleven  months,  he  amassed  five  millions  of  iivres 


2*2  SECRET  HISTORY  OP  THE 

(208,0007.)  The  Directory  then  gave  him  a  division,  first  under 
Jourdan,  and  afterwards  under  Le  Courbe.  Buonaparte,  after 
witnessing  his  incapacity  in  Italy,  in  1800,  put  him  on  the  full 
half  pay,  and  has  lately  made  him  a  commander  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour. 

His  dear  spouse,  Madame  Liebeau,  is  his  counterpart.  When 
he  married  her,  she  was  crying  mackerel  and  herrings  in  our 
streets  ;  but  she  told  me  in  confidence,  during  the  dinner,  be- 
ing seated  by  my  side,  that  her  father  was  an  officer  of  fortune, 
and  a  Chevalier  of  the  order  of  St.  Louis.  She  assured  me  that 
her  husband  had  done  greater  services  to  his  country  than  Buo- 
naparte; and  that,  had  it  not  been  for  his  patriotism  in  1793,  the 
Austrians  would  have  taken  Paris.  She  was  very  angry  with 
Madame  Napoleone,  to  whom  she  had  been  presented,  but  who 
had  not  shown  her  so  much  attention  and  civility  as  was  clue  to 
her  husband's  rank,  having  never  invited  her  more  than  to  one 
supper  and  two  tea-parties  ;  and,  when  invited  by  her,  had  sent 
Duroc  with  an  apology  that  she  was  unable  to  come,  though  the 
same  evening  she  went  to  the  opera. 

Another  guest,  in  the  regimentals  of  a  colonel,  seemed  rather 
bashful  when  I  spoke  to  him.  I  could  not  comprehend  the  rea- 
son, and  therefore  inquired  of  our  host,  who  he  was. — (You 
know  that  with  us  it  is  not  the  custom  to  introduce  persons  by 
name,  8cc.  as  in  your  country,  when  meeting  in  mixed  compa- 
nies.) He  answered,  "do  you  not  remember  your  brother's 
jockey,  Frial  '<" — "  Yes,"  said  I,  "  but  he  was  established  by  my 
brother  as  a  hairdresser." — "  He  is  the  very  same  person,"  re- 
plied the  jeweller ;  "  he  has  fought  very  bravely,  and  is  now  a 
colonel  of  dragoons,  a  great  favourite  \iith  Buonaparte,  and  will 
be  a  general  at  the  first  promotion."  As  the  colonel  did  not  seem 
to  desire  a  renewal  of  acquaintance  with  me,  I  did  not  intrude 
myself  upon  him. 

During  the  supper  the  military  gentlemen  were  encouraged 
by  the  bridegroom,  and  the  bottle  went  round  very  freely  ;  and 
the  more  they  drank,  the  greater  and  more  violent  became  their 
political  discussions.  Liebeau  vociferated  in  favour  of  republi- 
can and  revolutionary  measures,  and  avowed  his  approbation  of 
requisitions,  confiscations,  and  the  guillotine ;  while  Frial  inclin- 
ed to  the  regular  and  organised  despotism  of  one,  to  secret  trial,- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  J2J 

and  still  more  secret  execution  ;  defending  arbitrary  imprison- 
ment, exiles,  and  transportations.  This  displeased  Madame  Lie- 
beau,  who  exclaimed — u  Since  the  colonel  is  so  fond  of  an  impe- 
rial government,  he  can  have  no  objtction  to  remain  a  faithful 
subject,  whenever  my  husband,  Liebeau,  becomes  an  Antoine 
the  First,  Emperor  of  the  French."  Frial  smiled  with  contempt. 
"  You  seem  to  think  it  improbable,"  said  Liebeati.  "  I,  Antoine 
Liebeau — I  have  more  prospect  of  being  an  emperor,  than  Na- 
poleone  Buonaparte  had  ten  years  ago,  when  he  was  only  a  co- 
lonel, and  arrested  as  a  terrorist ;  and  am  not  I  a  Frenchman  ? 
and  is  he  not  a  foreigner  ?  Come,  shake  hands  with  me  ;  as  soon  as 
I  am  an  emperor,  depend  upon  it,  you  shall  be  a  general,  and  a 
grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour." — "  Ah  !  my  jewel,"  in- 
terrupted Madame  Liebeau  ;  "  how  happy  will  France  then  be. 
You  are  such  a  friend  of  peace  ;  we  will  then  have  no  \\ars — no 
contributions — ail  the  English  my  lords  may  then  come  here  and 
spend  their  money — nobody  cares  about  where  or  how.  Will  you 
not  then,  my  sweet  love,  make  all  the  gentlemen  here  your  cham- 
berlains, and  permit  me  to  accept  of  all  the  ladies  of  the  compa- 
ny for  my  maids  of  honour  or  ladies  in  waiting  ? 

"  Softly,  softly,  cried  Frial,  who  now  began  to  be  as  intoxicat- 
ed and  as  ambitious  as  the  general,  u  Whenever  Napoleone  dies, 
I  have  more  hope,  more  claim,  and  more  right  than  you  to  the 
throne.  I  am  in  actual  service  ;  and  had  not  Buonaparte  been 
the  same,  he  might  have  still  remained  upon  the  half-pay,  ob- 
scure and  despised.  Were  not  most  of  the  field-marshal^  and 
generals  under  him  now,  above  him  ten  years  ago  ?  May  I  not, 
ten  years  hence,  if  I  am  satisfied  with  you,  General  Liebeau, 
make  you  also  a  field-marshal,  or  my  minister  of  war  ?  and  you, 
Madame  Lieueau,  a  lady  of  my  wife's  wardrobe,  as  soon  as  I  am 
married  ?  I,  too,  have  my  plans,  and  my  views,  and,  perhaps, 
one  day  you  will  recollect  this  conversation,  and  not  be  sorry  for 
iny  acquaintance." — 4*  What,  you  a  colonel,  an  emperor,  before 
me,  who  have  so  long  been  a  general  ?"  howled  Liebeau,  who 
was  no  longer  able  to  speak.  "  I  would  sooner  knock  your  brains 
out  with  this  bottle,  than  suffer  such  a  precedence ;  and  my  wife 
a  lady  of  your  wardrobe  !  she  who  has  possessed  from  her  birth 
the  soul  of  an  empress  !  No,  Sir  !  never  will  I  take  the  oath  to 
nor  suffer  any  body  else  to  take  it." 


H'24  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

"  Then  I  will  punish  you  as  a  rebel,"  retorted  Frial ;  "  and  as 
sure  as  you  stand  here  you  shall  be  shot."  Liebeau  then  rose  up 
to  fetch  his  sword,  but  the  company  interfered,  and  the  dispute 
about  the  priority  of  claim  to  the  throne  of  France,  between  the 
ci-dtroant  drummer  and  ci-dfuunt  jockey,  was  left  undecided. 
From  the  words  and  looks  of  several  of  the  captains  present,  I 
think  that  they  seemed  in  their  own  opinions,  to  have  as  much 
prospect  and  expectation  to  reign  over  the  French  empire,  as 
either  the  General  Liebeau  or  Colonel  Frial. 

As  soon  as  I  returned  home,  I  wrote  down  this  curious  conver- 
sation and  tnis  debate  about  supremacy.  To  what  a  degradation 
is  the  highest  rank  in  my  unfortunate  country  reduced,  when  two- 
such  personages  seriously  contend  about  it  !  I  collected  more 
subjects  for  meditation  and  melancholy  in  this  low  company 
(where,  by  the  by,  I  witnessed  more  vulgarity  and  more  inde- 
cencies than  I  had  before  seen  during  my  life)  than  from  all  for- 
mer scenes  of  humiliation  and  disgust  since  my  return  here. 

When  I  the  next  day  mentioned  it  to  General  de  M ,  whom 

you  have  known  an  emigrant  officer  in  your  service,  but  whom 
policy  has  since  ranged  under  the  colours  of  Buonaparte,  he  as- 
sured me  that  these  discussions  about  the  imperial  throne  are 
very  frequent  among  the  superior  officers,  and  have  caused  ma- 
ny bloody  scenes  ;  and  that  hardly  any  of  our  generals  of  any  ta- 
lents exist,  who  have  not  the  same  arriere  ficnsee  of  some  day  or 
other.  Napoleone,  cannot,  therefore,  well  be  ignorant  of  the  ma- 
ny dynasties  here  now  rivalling  that  of  the  Buonapartes,  and  who. 
wait  only  for  his  exit,  to  tear  Ins  senatus  consultum,  his  will,  and 
his  family,  as  well  as  each  other  to  pieces. 


LETTER  L. 

Paris,   September,   1 805 . 

MY   LORD, 

I  WAS  lately  invited  to  a  tea-party  by  one  ©four  rich  upstart::, 
who,  from  a  scavenger,  is,  by  the  revolution  and  by  Buonaparte, 
transformed  into  a  legislator,  commander  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour,  and  possessor  ot  wealth  amounting  to  eighteen  mil- 
lions of  livres  (75,000/.)  In  this  house  I  saw,  for  the  first  time, 
the  famous  Madame  Chevalier,  the  mistress^  and  the  indirect 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  225 

cause  of  the  untimely  end  of  the  unfortunate  Paul  the  First.  She 
is  very  short,  fat  and  coarse.  I  do  not  know  whether  prejudice, 
from  what  I  have  heard  of  her  vile,  greedy,  and  immoral  charac- 
ter, influenced  my  feelings,  but  she  appeared  to  me  a  most  art- 
ful, vain  and  disagreeable  woman.  She  looked  to  be  about  thir- 
ty-six years  of  age  ;  and  though  she  might,  when  younger,  have 
been  well  made,  it  is  impossible  that  she  could  ever  have  been 
handsome.  The  features  of  her  face  are  far  from  being  regular, 
Her  mouth  is  large,  her  eyes  hollow,  and  her  nose  short.  Her 
language  is  that  of  brothels,  and  her  manners  correspond  with 
her  expressions.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a  workman  at  a  silk 
manufactory  at  Lyons  ;  she  ceased  to  be  a  maid,  before  she  had 
attained  the  age  of  a  woman,  and  lived  in  a  brothel  in  her  native 
city,  kept  by  a  Madame  Thibault,  where  her  husband  first  be- 
came acquainted  with  her.  Having  then  a  tolerable  good  voice, 
and  being  young  and  insinuating,  he  introduced  her  on  the  same 
stage  where  he  was  one  of  the  inferior  dancers.  Here,  in  a  short 
time,  she  improved  so  much,  that  she  was  engaged  as  a  supernu- 
merary ;  her  salary  in  France  as  an  actress  was,  however,  ne- 
ver above  twelve  hundred  livres  in  the  year,  (50/.)  which  was  four 
hundred  more  than  her  husband  received. 

He,  with  several  other  inferior  and  unprincipled  actors  and  dan- 
cers, quitted  the  stage  in  the  beginning  of  the  revolution  for  the 
clubs  ;  and  instead  of  diverting  his  audience,  resolved  to  reform 
and  regenerate  his  nation.  His  name  is  found  in  the  annals  of 
the  crimes  perpetrated  at  Lyons,  by  the  side  of  that  of  a  Fouche, 
a  Collot  d'ilerbois,  and  other  wicked  offsprings  of  rebellion.— 
With  all  other  terrorists  he  was  imprisoned  for  some  time  after 
the  death  of  Robespierre  :  as  soon  as  restored  to  liberty,  he  set 
out  with  his  wife  for  Hamburgh,  where  some  amateurs  had  con- 
structed a  French  theatre. 

It  was  in  the  Autumn  of  1795,  when  Madame  Chevalier  was- 
first  heard  of  in  the  north  of  Europe,  where  her  arrival  occasion- 
ed  a  kind  of  theatrical  war  between  the  French,  American  and 
Hamburgh  jacobins  on  one  side,  and  the  English  emigrant  loy- 
alists on  the  other.  Having  no  money  to  continue  her  pretended 
journey  to  Sweden,  she  asked  the  manager  of  the  French  theatre 
at  Hamburgh,  to  allow  her  a  benefit,  and  to  play  on  that  night,, 
She  selectedj  of  course,  a  part  in  which  she  could  appear  to  the 


aae  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

most  advantage,  and  was  deservedly  applauded.  The  very  next 
evening,  the  jacobin  cabal  called  the  manager  upon  the  stage,  and 
insisted  that  Madame  Chevalier  should  be  given  a  regular  engage- 
ment. He  replied,  that  no  place  suitable  to  her  talents  was  va- 
cant, and  that  it  would  be  ungenerous  to  turn  away  for  her  sake, 
another  actress  with  whom  the  public  had  hitherto  declared 
their  satisfaction.  The  jacobins  continued  inflexible,  and  here, 
as  well  as  every  where  else,  supported  injustice  by  violence.  As 
the  patriotism  of  the  husband,  more  than  the  charms  of  the  wife, 
was  known  to  have  produced  this  indecent  fracas,  which,  for  up- 
Avards  of  a  week,  interrupted  the  plays,  all  anti-jacobins  united 
to  restore  order.  In  this  they  would,  perhaps,  have  finally  suc- 
ceeded, had  not  the  bayonets  of  the  Hamburgh  soldiers  interfer- 
ed, and  forced  this  precious  piece  of  revolutionary  furniture  upon 
the  manager  and  upon  the  stage. 

After  displaying  her  gratitude  in  her  own  wtf//,  to  each  indi- 
vidual of  the  jacobin  levy-en-masse  in  her  favour,  she  was  taken 
into  keeping  by  a  then  rich  and  married  Hamburgh  merchant, 
who  mude  her  a  present  of  a  richly  and  elegantly  furnishtti  house, 
and  expended,  besides,  ten  thousand  louis  d'ors  on  her,  before  he 
had  a  mortifying  conviction,  that  some  other  hud  purtukei 
favours  for  which  he  had  so  dearly  paid.  A  countryman  of 
your's  then  showed  himself  with  more  noise  than  honour  upon 
the  scene,  and  made  his  debut  with  a  phaeton  and  four,  which  he 
presented  to  his  theatrical  goddess,  together  with  his  own  clear 
portrait,  set  round  with  large  and  valuable  diamonds.  Madame 
Chevalier,  however,  soon  afterwards  net-ring  that  her  English 
gallant  had  come  over  to  Germany  for  economy,  and  that  hia 
credit  with  his  banker  was  nearly  exhausted,  had  his  portrait 
changed  for  that  of  another  and  richer  lover,  preserving,  howe- 
ver, the  diamonds  ;  and  she  exposed  this  inconstancy  even  upon 
the  stage,  by  suspending,  as  if  in  triumph,  the  new  portrait  fastened 
on  her  bosom.  The  Englishman  wishing  to  retrieve  his  phaeton 
and  horses,  which  he  protested  only  to  have  lent  his  belle,  found 
that  she  had  put  the  whole  equipage  into  a  kind  of  lottery,  or 
raffle,  to  which  all  her  numerous  friends  had  subscribed,  and  that, 
an  Altona  Jew  had  won  it. 

The  successor  of  your  countryman  was  a  Russian  nobleman 
succeeded  in  his  turn,  bv  a  Polish  Jew.  who  was  ruined  and  dis* 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  22T 

carded  within  three  months.  She  then  became  the  property  of 
the  public,  and  by  her  active  industry,  during  a  stay  of  four  years 
jat  Hamburgh,  she  was  enabled  to  remit  to  France,  before  her 
(departure  for  Russia,  one  million  two  hundred  thousand  livres, 
j(50,000/.)  Her  popularity  was,  however,  at  that  period,  very 
linuch  on  the  decline,  as  she  had  stooped  to  the  most  indelicate 
means  to  collect  money,  and  to  extoit  it  from  her  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances. She  had  always  lists  of  subscriptions  in  her 
pocket ;  some  with  proposals  to  play  in  her  lotteries,  for  trinkets 
unnecessary  to  her  ;  others,  to  procure  her,  by  the  assistance 
of  subscribers,  some  trinkets  which  she  wanted. 

I  suppose  it  to  be  no  secret  to  you,  that  the  female  agents  of 
Talleyrand's  secret  diplomacy  are  frequently  more  useful  than 
those  of  the  other  sex.  I  am  told  that  Madame  Rochechouart  [/ 
was  that  friend  of  our  minister  who  engaged  Madame  Chevalier 
in  her  Russian  expedition,  and  who  instructed  her  how  to  act 
her  parts  well  at  St.  Pttersburgh.  I  need  not  repeat  what  is  so 
Well  known,  that  after  this  artful  emissary  had  ruined  the  do- 
mestic happines  of  the  Russian  monarch,  she  degraded  him  in 
his  political  transactions,  and  became  the  indirect  cause  of  his 
untimely  end,  in  procuring,  for  a  bribe  of  fifty  thousand  rubles, 

in  money  and  jewels,  the  recall  of  P Z.  one  of  the  principal 

conspirators  against  the  unfortunate  Paul. 

The  wealth  she  plundered  in  the  Russian  capital,  within  the 
short  period  of  twenty  months,  amounted  to  much  above  one  mil- 
lion of  rubies.  For  money  she  procured  impunity  to  crime,  and 
brought  upon  innocence,  the  punishment  merited  by  guilt. — 
The  scaffolds  of  Russia  were  bleeding,  and  the  roads  to  Siberia 
crowded  with  the  victims  to  the  avarice  of  this  ft- male  demon, 
who  often  promised  what  she  was  unable  to  perform  ;  and  to 
silence  complaint,  added  cruelty  to  fraud  ;  .and,  after  pocketing 
the  bribe,  resorted  to  the  executioner,  to  remove  -those  whom  shr 
had  duped.  The  shocking  anecdote  of  the  Sardinian  secretary, 
from  whom  she  swindled  near  one  hundred  thousand  rubles,  and 
on  whom  she  afterwards  persuaded  her  imperial  lover  to  ir.fiict 
capital  punishment,  is  too  recent  and  too  public,  to  be  unknown 
or  forgotten.  A  Russian  nobleman  has  assured  me,  that  the 
number  of  unfortunate  individuals,  whom  her  and  her  husbi-.ndV 
intrigues  have  caused  to  suffer  capitally,  during  1800  and  1801. 


228  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

were  forty-six  ;  and  that  near  three  hundred  persons  besides^ 
who  could  not,  or  would  not,  pay  their  extortions,  were  exiled  to 
'Siberia,  during  the  same  period  of  time. 

You  may,  perhaps,  think  that  a  low  woman,  \vho  could  pn> 
duce  such  great  and  terrible  events,  must  be  mistress  of  natural 
charms,  as  well  as  of  acquired  accomplishments.  As  I  have  al- 
ready stated,  she  can  have  no  pretensions  to  either ;  but  she  is 
extremely  insinuating,  sings  tolerably  well,  has  a  fresh  and  heal* 
thy  look,  and  possesses  an  unusually  great  share  of  cunning,  pre- 
sumption, and  duplicity.  Her  husband,  also,  every  where  took 
care  to  make  her  fashionable  ;  and  the  vanity  of  the  first  of 
their  dupes,  increased  the  number  of  her  admirers,  and  engaged 
the  vanity  of  others,  in  their  turn,  to  sacrifice  themselves  at  her 
shrine. 

The  immorality  of  our  age,  also,  often  procured  her  popularity 
for  what  deserved,  and,  in  better  times,  would  have  encountered, 
the  severest  reprobation.  In  1797,  an  emigrant  lodged  at  an 
inn  at  Hamburgh,  where  another  traveller  was  robbed  of  a  large 
sum  in  ready  money  and  jewels.  The  unfortunate  is  always 
suspected  ;  and  in  the  visit  made  in  his  room  by  the  magistrates, 
was  found  a  key  that  opened  the  door  of  the  apartment  where  the 
theft  was  committed.  In  vain  did  he  represent,  that  had  he 
been  the  t'/ief,  he  should  not  have  kept  an  instrument,  which 
was,  or  might  be  construed  into  an  argument  of  guilt ;  he  was 
carried  to  prison,  and  though  none  of  the  property  was  discover- 
ed in  his  possession,  would  have  been  condemned,  had  he  not 
produced  Madame  Chevalier,  who  avowed  that  the  key  opened 
the  door  of  her  bed-room,  which  the  smith  who  had  made  it  con- 
firmed, and  swore  that  he  had  fabricated  eight  other  keys  for  the 
same  actress,  and  for  the  same  purpose. 

At  that  time,  this  woman  lived  in  the  same  house  with  her 
husband,  but  cohabited  there  with  the  husband  of  another  wife. 
She  had  also  places  of  assignation  with  other  gallants,  at  private 
apartments,  both  in  Hamburgh  and  at  Altona.  All  these,  her 
scandalous  intrigues,  were  known  even  to  the  common  porters  of 
these  cities.  The  first  time  after  the  affair  of  the  key  had  be- 
come public,  she  acted  in  a  play  where  a  key  was  mentioned,  and 
the  audience  immediately  repeated,  the  key  !  the  key  !  Far 
from  being  ashamed,  she  appeared  every  night  in  pieces  selected 


COURT  OF  ST,  CLOUD.  329 

by  her,  where  there  was  mention  of  keys,  and  thus  tired  the 
jokes  of  the  public.  This  impudence  might  have  been  expected 
from  her,  but  it  was  little  to  be  supposed,  that  her  barefaced  vices 
should,  as  really  was  the  case,  augment  the  crowd  of  suitors,  and 
occasion  even  some  duels,  which  latter  she  both  encouraged  and 
rewarded. 

Two  brothers  of  the  name  of  de  S — • — ,  were  both  in  love  with 
her,  and  the  oldest,  as  the  richest,  became  her  choice.  Offended 
at  his  refusal  of  a  too  large  sum  of  money,  she  wrote  to  the 

younger  de  S ,  and  offered  to  accede  to  his  proposals,  if,  like 

a  gentleman,  he  would  revenge  the  affront  she  had  experienced 
from  his  brother.  He  consulted  a  friend,  who,  to  expose  her  in- 
famy, advised  him  to  send  some  confidential  person  to  inform 
her,  that  he  had  killed  his  elder  brother,  and  expected  the  recom- 
pense on  the  same  night.  He  went,  and  was  received  with  open 
arms  ;  and  had  just  retired  with  her,  when  the  elder  brother, 
accompanied  by  his  friend,  entered  the  room.  Madame  Cheva- 
lier, instead  of  upbraiding,  laughed  ;  and  the  next  day,  the  pub- 
lic laughed  with  her,  and  applauded  her  more  than  ever.  She 
knew  very  well  what  she  was  doing.  The  stories  of  the  key  and 
the  duel  produced  for  her  more  than  four  thousand  louis  d'ors, 
by  the  number  of  new  gallants  they  enticed.  It  was  a  kind  of 
emulation  among  all  the  young  men  in  the  North,  who  should  be 
foremost  to  dishonour  and  ruin  himself  with  this  infamous 
woman. 

Madame  Chevalier  and  her  husband  now  live  here  in  grand" 
style,  and  have  their  grand  parties,  grand  teas,  grand  assemblies, 
and  grand  balls.  Their  hotel,  I  am  assured,  is  even  visited  by 
the  Buonapartes,  and  by  the  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic 
corps.  In  the  house  where  I  saw  her,  I  observed  that  Louis 
Buonaparte  and  two  foreign  ambassadors  spoke  to  her  as  old  ac- 
quaintances. Though  rich  to  the  amount  of  ten  millions  of 
livres,  (416,000/.)  she,  or  rather  her  husband,  keeps  a  gambling 
house,  and  her  superannuated  charms  are  still  to  be  bought  for 
money,  at  the  disposal  of  those  amateurs  who  are  fond  of  an- 
tiques. Both  her  husband  and  herself  are  still  members  of  our 
secret  diplomacy,  though  she  complains  loudly,  that  of  the  two 
millions  of  livres  (645000/.)  promised  her  in  17997  by  Buonaparte 


230  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

and  Talleyrand,  if  she  could  succeed  to  persuade  Paul  I.  to  with- 
draw from  his  alliance  with  England  and  Austria,  only  six  hun- 
dred thousand  iivres  (Ss^OOO/.)  have  been  paid  her.  . 

I  cannot  finish  this  letter  without  telling  you,  that  before  our 
military  forces  had  reached  the  Rhine,  our  political  incendiaries 
had  already  taken  the  field,  and  were  in  full  march  towards  the 
Austrian,  Russian,  and  Prussian  capitals.  The  advanced  guard 
of  t! sis  dangerous  corps,  consists  entirely  of  females,  all  gifted 
M'itli  beauty  and  parts  as  much  superior  to  those  of  Madame  Che- 
valier, us  their  instructions  are  better  digested.  Buonaparte  and 
Talleyrand  have  more  than  once  regretted,  that  Madame  Cheva- 
lier was  not  ordered  to  enter  into  -the  conspiracy  against  Paulj 
(whose  inconsistency  and  violence,  they  foresaw,  would  make 
his  reign  short)  that  she  might  have  influenced  the  conspirators 
to  have  fixed  upon  a  successor,  more  pliable  and  less  scrupulous  ; 
and  who  would  have  suffered  the  cabinet  of  St.  Cloud  to  dictate 
to  the  cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg!!. 

I  dined  in  company  several  times  this  last  spring  with  two  la- 
dies, who,  rumour  said,  have  been  destined  for  your  P-^-  of  W— 
ana  D— -  of  \- — ,  ever  since  the  peace  of  Amiens.  Talleyrand  is 
well  informed  what  figures  and  what  talents  are  requisite  to  make 
an  impression  on  these  princes,  and  has  made  his  choice  according- 
ly. T.iese  ladies  have  lately  disappeared,  and  when  inquired  after, 
are  stated  to  be  in  the  country,  though  I  do  not  consider  it  im- 
probable, that  they  are  already  arrived  at  head-quarters.  They 
are  bom  rather  Lir  and  iusty,  above  the  middle  size,  and  about 
twenty-live  years  of  age.  They  speak,  besides  French,  the  Eng- 
lis  s  and  Itaiidii  languages.  They  are  good  drawers,  good  mu-* 
good  singers,  and,  if  necessary,  even  good  drinkers. 


LETTER  LI. 

Paris )  Sejit  ember,  1805; 

MY    LORD) 

HAD  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  been  as  submissive  to 
the  taxation  oi  your  goverrmtnt,  as  to  the  vexations  of  our  ruler? 
An-erica.  wouki,  periiapsj  have  been  less  free,  and  Europe  morr. 
tranquil. 


COURT -0F  ST.  CLOUD-.  ,231 

After  the  treaty  of  Amiens  had  produced  a  general  pacifica- 
tion, our  government  was  seriously  determined  to  reconquer 
from  America,  a  part  of  those  treasures,  its  citizens  had  gained 
during  the  revolutionary  war,  by  a  neutrality  which  our  policy 
and  interest  required,  and  which  the  liberality  of  your  govern- 
ment endured.  Hence,  the  acquisition  we  made  of  New-Or- 
leans from  Spain,  and  hence,  the  intrigues  of  our  emissaries  in 
that  colony,  and  the  peremptory  requisitions  of  provision  for  St. 
Domingo,  by  our  minister  and  our  generals.  Had  we  been  vic- 
torious in  St.  Domihgo,  most  cl  our  troops  there  were  destined 
for  the  American  continent,  to  invade,  according  to  circumstan- 
ces, either  the  Spanish  colonies  on  the  Terra  Firma,  or  the 
States  of  the  American  commonwealth.  The  unforeseen  rup- 
ture wita  your  country,  postponed  a  plan  that  is  fur  from  being 
laid  aside. 

You  may,  perhaps,  think)  that  since  we  sold  Louisiana,  we  have 
no  footing  in  America,  that  can  threaten  the  peace  or  independ- 
ence of  the  United  States  ;  but  may  not  the  same  dictates  that  pro- 
cured us  at  Madrid  the  acquisition  of  New -Orleans,  also  make  us 
masters  of  Spanish  Florida  ?  and  do  you  believe  it  improbable 
that  the  present  disagreement  between  America  and  Spuin  are 
kept  up  by  our  intrigues  and  by  our  future  views  ?  Would  not 
a  word  from  us  settle  in  an  instant,  at  Madrid,  the  differences,  as 
well  as  the  frontiers,  of  the  contending  parties  in  America  ?  And 
does  it  not  seem  to  be  the  regular  and  systematic  plan  of  our  go- 
vernment to  provoke  the  retaliation  of  the  Americans,  and  to 
show  our  disregard  of  their  privilege  of  neutrality,  and  rigi  ts  of 
independence  ;  and,  that  we  insult  them,  only  because  we  do  not 
apprehend  their  resentment  ? 

I  have  heard  the  late  American  minister  here  assert,  that  the 
American  vessels  captured  by  our  cruisers,  and  condemned  by 
our  tribunals, -only  during  the  last  war,  amounted  to  above  five 
hundred  ;  and  their  cargoes  (all  American  property)  to  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  of  livres  (6^COO,000/.)  Some  few  days  ago, 
I  saw  a  printed  list,  presented  by  the  American  consul  to  cur 
minister  of  the  marine  department,  claiming  one  hundred  and 
twelve  American  sisips,  captured  in  the  West-Indies,  and  on  the 
coast  of  America,  witliir,  these  last  two  years;  the  cargoes  of 
which,  have  all  been  confiscated,  and  most  of  the  crews  still  con- 


232  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tinuc  prisoners  at  Martinico,  at  Guadalonpe,  or  Cayenne.-— 
Besides  these,  sixty -six  American  ships,  after  being  plundered  in 
part,  of  their  cargoes  at  sea,  by  our  privateers,  had  been  released  5 
and  their  claims  for  property  thus  lost,  or  damage  thus  done, 
amounted  to  one  million  three  hundred  thousand  livres  (54,000/.) 

You  must  have  read  the  proclamations  of  our  governors  in 
the  West-Indies,  and  therefore  remember  that  one  dated  at 
Guadaloupe,  and  another  dated  at  the  city  of  San  Domingo,  both 
declare,  without  farther  ceremony,  all  American  and  other  neu- 
tral ships  and  cargoes  good  and  lawful  prizes,  when  coming 
from  or  destined  to  any  port  in  the  Island  of  St.  Domingo  ;  be- 
cause Butna/.artt's  subjects  there  were  in  a  state  of  rebellion. 
What  would  these  philanthropists,  who  twelve  years  ago  wrote 
so  many  libels  against  your  ministers,  for  their  pretended  svz- 
*em  of  famine,  have  said,  had  they,  instead  of  prohibiting  the 
carry  ing  of  ammunkion  and  provisions  to  the  ports  of  France, 
fhus  extended  their  orders  without  discrimination  or  distinction  ? 
How  would  the  neutral  Americans,  and  the  neutral  Danes,  and 
their  then  allies,  philosophers  and  jacobins  of  till  colours  and  clas- 
ses, have  complained  and  declaimed  against  the  tyrants  of  the 
seas  ;  against  the  enemies  of  humanity,  liberty  and  equality. 
Have  not  the  negroes  now  as  much  as  our  jacobins  had  in  1793, 
a  right  to  call  upon  all  these  tender-hearted  schemers,  dupes  or 
impostors  to  interest  humanity  in  their  favour?  Bat,  as  far  as  I 
know,  no  friends  of  liberty  have  yet  written  a  line  in  favour  of 
these  oppressed  and  injured  men,  whose  former  slavery  was 
never  doubtful,  and  who,  therefore,  had  more  reason  to  rise 
against  their  tyrants,  and  to  attempt  to  shake  off  their  yoke,  than 
our  French  insurgents  ;  who,  free  before,  have  never  since  they 
revolted  against  lawful  authority,  enjoyed  an  hour's  freedom. 
But  the  Emperor  Jacques  the  First  has  no  propagators,  no  emis- 
saries, no  learned  men,  and  no  secret  agents  to  preach  insurrec- 
tion in  other  states,  while  defending  his  own  usurpation  ;  besides, 
his  treasury  is  not  in  the  most  brilliant  and  nourishing  situation, 
and  the  crew  of  our  white  revolutionists  are  less  attached  to  li- 
berty than  to  cash. 

Our  ambassador  to  the  U*****  S*****,  Gen.  T*******,  is 
far  from  being  contented  with  our  friend  president  Jefferson, 
whose  patriotic  notions  have  not  yet  soared  to  the  level  of  cm* 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

patriotic  transactions.  He  refused  both  to  prevent  the  marriage 
of  Jerome  Buonaparte  with  a  female  American  citizen,  and  to 
detain  her  after  her  marriage,  \vhen  her  husband  returned  to 
Europe.  To  our  continual  representation,  against  the  liberties 
which  the  American  newspapers  take  with  our  government,  with 
our  emperor,  with  our  Imperial  family,  and  \with  our  Imperial 
ministers,  the  answer  has  always  been,  "  prosecute  the  libeller, 
and  as  soon  as  he  is  convicted,  he  will  be  punished."  This  tardy 
and  negative  justice  is  so  opposite  to  our  expeditious  and  sum- 
mary mode  of  proceeding,  of  punishing  first,  and  trying  after- 
wards,  that  it  must  be  both  humiliating  and  offensive.  In  return, 
when  the  Americans  have  complained  to  T*******,  against  the 
piracy  of  our  privateers,  he  has  sent  them  here  to  seek  redress, 
where  they  also  will  to  their  cost  discover,  that  in  civil  cases,  our 
justice  has  not  the  same  rapid  march,  as  when  it  is  a  question  of 
arresting  or  transporting  suspected  persons,  or  of  tormenting, 
shooting  or  guillotining  a  pretended  spy,  or  supposed  conspira- 
tor. 

Had  the  peace  of  Europe  continued,  Bernadolte  was  the  per- 
son selected  by  Buonaparte  and  Talleyrand,  as  our  representa- 
tive in  America;  because  we  then  intended  to  strike,  and  not  to 
negotiate.  But,  during  the  present  embroiled  state  of  Europe,  an 
intriguer  was  more  necessary  there  than  either  a  warrior  or  a  po- 
litician. A  man  who  has  passed  through  all  the  mire  of  our  own 
Revolution,  who  has  been  in  the  secrets,  and  an  accomplice  of  all 
eur  factions,  is  undoubtedly  a  useful  instrument,  where  factions 
are  to  be  created  and  directed,  where  wealth  is  designed  for  pil- 
lage, and  a  state  for  overthrow.  General  T *******  is  there- 
fore in  his  place,  and  at  his  proper  post,  as  ambassador  in  Ame- 
rica. 

This  son  of  a  valet  of  the  late  Duke  of  Bouillon,  T*******,  call- 
ed himself,  before  the  Revolution,  Chevalier  de  Grambouville, 
and  was  in  fact,  a  Chevalier  d'industrie,  who  supported  himself 
by  gambling  and  cheating.  An  associate  of  Bournonville,  Bar- 
ras,  and  other  vile  characters,  he  with  them  joined  the  colours  of 
rebellion,  and  served  under  the  former  in  1792,  in  the  army  of 
Moselle  ;  fust  as  a  volunteer,  and  afterwards  as  an  aide-dc-cr.np, 
In  a  speech  at  the  Jacobin  Club  at  Quesnoy,  on  tbe  20th  of  No- 
vember, 1792,  he  made  a  motion,  «  that,  throughout  the  whole 


234  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

republican  army,  all  hats  should  be  prohibited,  and  red  caps  sub* 
stitutedin  their  place  ;  and  that  not  only  portable  guillotines,  but 
portable  Jacobin  Clubs,  should  accompany  the  soldiers  of  liberty 
and  equality. 

A  cousin  of  his  was  a  member  of  the  National  Convention, 
and  one  of  those  called  Mountaineers,  or  sturdy  partisans  of  Ma- 
rat and  Robespierre.  It  was  to  the  influence  of  this  his  cousin 
that  he  was  indebted  first  for  a  commission  as  an  Adjutant-Ge- 
neral, and  afterwards  for  his  promotion  to  a  General  of  Brigade. 
In  1793,  he  was  ordered  to  march  under  the  command  of  San  - 
terre,  to  La  Vendee,  where  he  shared  in  the  defeat  of  the  republi- 
cans at  Vihiers.  At  the  engagement  near  Roches  d'Erigne,  he 
commanded  for  the  first  time  a  separate  column,  and  the  capa- 
city and  abilities  which  he  displayed  on  that  occasion  were  such  as 
•might  have  been  expected  from  a  man  who  had  passed  the  first 
thirty  years  of  his  life  in  brothels  and  gambling-houses.  So 
pleasant  were  his  dispositions,  that  almost  the  whole  army  nar- 
rowly escaped  being  thrown  into  the  river  Loire.  The  battle 
ofDoue  was  the  only  one  in  which  he  had  a  share,  where  the  re- 
publicans were  not  routed  ;  but  some  few  days  afterwards,  near 
Coron,  all  the  troops  under  him  were  cut  to  pieces,  and  he  was 
himself  wounded. 

The  confidence  of  his  friends  the  jacobins  increased,  however, 
in  proportion  to  his  disasters,  and  he  was  in  1794,  after  the  supe- 
rior number  of  the  republican  soldiers  had  forced  the  remnants  of 
the  Royalists  to  evacuate  what  was  properly  called  La  Vendee, 
appointed  a  commander  in  chief.  He  had  now  an  opportunity  to 
display  his  infamy  and  barbarity.  Having  established  his 
head-  quarters  at  Nantes,  where  he  was  safe,  amidst  the  massa- 
cres of  women  and  children,  ordered  by  his  friend  Carriere,  he 
commanded  the  republican  army  to  enter  La  Vendee  in  twelve 
columns,  preceded  by  fire  and  sword  ;  and  within  four  weeks, 
one  of  the  most  populous  countries  of  France,  to  the  extent  and 
circumference  of  sixty  leagues,  was  laid  waste  ;  not  a  house,  not 
a  cottage,  not  a  tree  was  spared,  all  was  reduced  to  ashes  ;  and 
the  unfortunate  inhabitants,  who- had  not  perished  amid  the  ruins 
ef  their  dwellings,  were  shot  or  stabbed  while  attempting  to  save 
themselves  from  the  common  conflagration.  On  the  22d  of  Ja- 
nuary, 1794,  he  wrote  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  of  the  Na- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  233 

tional  Convention  :  "  Citizen  Representatives  !'  a  country  of 
sixty  leagues  extent,  I  have  the  hapfiincs'a  to  inform  you,  is  now  a 
perfect  desert  ;  not  a  dwelling,  not  a  bush,  but  is  reduced  to  ash- 
es ;  and  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  worthless  inhabi- 
tants, not  a  soul  breathes  any  longer.  Men  and  women,  old 
men  and  children,  have  all  experienced  the  national  vengeance, 
and  are  no  more.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  a  true  republican  to  see, 
upon  the  bayonets  of  each  of  our  brave  republicans,  the  children 
of  traitors,  or  their  heads.  According  to  the  lowest  calculation, 
I  have  dlafiatchcdi  within  three  months,  two  hundred  thousand 
individuals  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages— *Vrve  la  Rcpublique  I  I  !" 
In  the  works  of  Prudhomme  and  our  republican  writers  are  in- 
serted hundreds  of  letters,  still  more  cruelly  extravagant,  from 
this  ci-devant  friend  of  liberty  and  equality,  and  at  present  faithful 
subject,  and  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  of  his  Impe- 
rial Majesty  Napoleone  the  First. 

After  the  death  of  Robespierre,  T*******,  then  a  governor  at 
Bellisle,  was  arrested  as  a  terrorist,  and  shut  up  at  du  Plessis,  un- 
til the  general  amnesty  released  him  in  1795.  During  his  im- 
prisonment, he  amused  himself  with  writing  the  memoirs  of  the 
war  of  La  Vendee,  in  which  he  tried  to  prove  that  all  his  barba- 
rities had  been  perpetrated  for  the  sake  of  humanity •,  and  to  save 
the  lives  of  republicans.  He  had  also  the  modesty  to  announce, 
that  as  a  military  work,  his  production  would  be  equally  interest- 
ing- as  those  of  a  Folard  and  Guibert.  These  memoirs,  however, 
proved  nothing,  but  that  he  was  equally  ignorant  and  wicked,  pre- 
sumptuous and  ferocious. 

During  the  reign  of  the  Directory,  he  was  rather  discarded, 
or  only  employed  as  a  kind  of  recruiting  officer,  to  hunt  young- 
conscripts  ;  but,  in  1800,  Buonaparte  gave  him  a  command  in 
the  Army  of  Reserve  ;  and  in  1802,  another  in  the  army  of  the 
Interior.  He  then  became  one  of  the  most  assiduous  and  crin- 
ging courtiers  at  the  Emperor's  levees  ;  while  in  the  Empress's 
drawing-room  he  assumed  his  former  air  and  tone  of  a  chevalier, 
in  hope  to  impose  upon  those  who  did  not  remember  the  nick- 
name which  his  soldiers  gave  him  ten  years  before,  of  Chevalier 
of  the  Guillotine. 

At  a  ball  of  the  Buonaparte  family,  to  which  he  was  invited, 
the  Emperor  took  the  fancy  to  dance  with  his  step -daughter,  Ma- 


236  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

dame  Louis.  He  therefore  unhooked  his  sword,  which  he  1 
ed  to  a  young  Colonel  d'Avry,  standing  by  his  side.  This  Colo- 
nel, who  had  been  a  page  at  the  court  of  Louis  XVI.  knew  that  it 
would  have  been  against  etiquette,  and  even  unbecoming  of  him, 
to  act  as  a  valet  to  Napoleone,  while  other  valets  were  in  the 
room  ;  he  therefore  retreated,  looking  round  for  a  servant : 
"  Oh  !"  said  the  Emperor,  "  I  see  that  I  am  mistaken  here 
Generals,"  continued  he,  (addressing  himself  to  half  a  dozen, 
with  whose  independent  principles  and  good  breeding  he  was  ac- 
quainted) "  take  this  sword  during  my  dance."  They  all  pushed 
forward,  but  Turreaux  and  La  Grange,  another  general  and  in- 
triguer, were  foremost  ;  the  latter,  however,  received  the  pre- 
ference. On  the  next  day  d'Avry  was  ordered  ujion  service  to 
Cayenne. 

T*******  has  acquired,  by  \\\s  patriotic  deeds  in  La  Vendee, 
a  fortune  of  seven  millions  of  iivres  (292,000/.)  He  has  the 
highest  opinion  of  his  own  capacity,  while  a  moment's  conversa- 
tion will  inform  a  man  of  sense  that  he  is  only  a  conceited  fool. 
As  to  his  political  transactions,  he  has  by  his  side,  as  a  secretary, 
a  man  by  the  name  of  Pttry,  who  has  received  a  diplomatic  edu- 
cation, and  does  not  want  subtlety  or  parts ;  and  on  him,  no 
doubt,  is  thrown  the  drudgery  of  business.  During  a  LiiiOpc.an 
war,  T*******VpOSt  is 6f  little  relative  consequence  ;  but  should 
Napoleone  Buonaparte  live  to  dictate  another  general  pacifica- 
tion, the  U*****  S*****  will  be  exposed  on  their  frontiers  or  in 
their  interior,  to  the  same  outrages  their  commercial  navy  now 
experiences  on  the  main. 


LETTER  LII. 

Faris,  September,  1805. 

MY   LORD, 

A  GENERAL  officer  who  is  just  arrived  from  Italy,  has  as- 
sured me  that  so  far  from  Buonaparte's  subjects  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Alps  being  cemented  and  attached  to  his  person  and 
government,  were  a  victorious  Austrian  army  to  enter  the  plains 
.ibardy,  a  gin  -rul  insurrection  would  be  the  consequence 
During,  these  4ast  nine  years,.Uie  inhabitants-have  not  enjoyed  a 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  237 

moment's  tranquillity  or  safety.  Every  relation  or  favourite  whom 
Napoleone  wished  to  provide  for,  or  to  enrich,  he  has  saddled 
upon  them  as  in  free  quarters  ;  and  since  1796,  when  they  first 
had  the  honour  of  our  Emperor's  acquaintance,  they  have  paid 
more  in  taxes,  in  forced  loans,  requisitions  and  extortions,  of  every 
description,  than  their  ancestors  or  themselves  had  paid  during 
the  one  hundred  and  ninety-six  preceding  years. 

Such  is  the  public  spirit,  and  such  have  been  the  sufferings  of 
the  people  in  the  ci-dc~vant  Lombardy  :  in  Piedmont  they  are 
still  worse"  off ;  having  more  national  character,  and  more  fidelity 
towards  their  Sovereign,  than  their  neighbours,  they  are  also 
more  cruelly  treated.  Their  governor,  General  Menou,  has 
caused  most  of  the  departments  to  be  declared  under  martial  law, 
and  without  right  to  claim  the  protection  of  our  hajifiy  constitu- 
tion. In  every  city  or  town  are  organized  special  tribunals,  the 
progeny  of  our  revolutionary  tribunals  ;  against  the  sentences  of 
which  no  appeal  can  be  made,  though  these  sentences  are  always 
capital  ones.  Before  these,  suspicion  is  evidence,  and  an  impru- 
dent word  is  subject  to  the  same  punishment  as  a  murderous 
deed.  Murmur  is  regarded  as  mutiny,  and  he  who  complains  is 
shot  as  a  conspirator. 

There  exist  only  two  ways  for  the  wretched  Piedmontese  to 
escape  these  legal  assassinations.  They  must  either  desert  their 
country,  or  sacrifice  a  part  of  their  property.  In  the  former  case, 
if  retaken,  they  are  condemned  as  emigrants  ;  and  in  the  latter 
they  incur  the  risk,  that  those  to  whom  they  have  already  given 
a  part  of  their  possessions  will  also  require  the  remainder,  and 
having  obtained  it,  to  enjoy  in  security  the  spoil,  will  send  them 
to  the  tribunals  and  to  death.  Menou  has  a  fixed  tariff  for  his 
protection,  regulated  according  to  the  riches  of  each  person  ; 
and  the  tax-gatherers  collect  these  arbitrary  contributions  with 
the  regular  ones  ;  so  little  pains  are  taken  to  conceal  or  to  dis- 
guise these  robberies. 

Menou,  by  turns  a  nobleman  and  a  sans-culotte,  a  Christian 
and  amussulman,  is  wicked  and  profligate,  not  from  the  impulse 
of  the  moment,  or  of  any  sudden  gust  of  passion,  but  coldly  and 
deliberately.  He  calculates  with  sang  froid  the  profit  and  the 
risk  of  every  infamous  action  he  proposes  to  commit,  and  deter- 
mines accordingly,  He  owed  some  riches  and  the  rank  of  a  ma-- 


238  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

jor-general  to  the  bounty  of  Louis  XVI.  but  when  he  consider- 
ed the  immense  value  of  the  revolutionary  plunder,  called  na- 
tional property,  and  that  those  who  confiscated  could  also  pro- 
mote, he  did  not  hesitate  what  party  to  take.  A  traitor  in  gene- 
rally a  coward ;  he  has  every  where  experienced  defeats ;  he 
was  defeated  by  his  royalist  countrymen  in  1793,  by  his  Ma- 
hometan sectaries  in  1 800,  and  by  your  countrymen  in  1801. 

Besides  his  Turkish  wife,  Menou  has  in  the  same  house  with 
her,  one  Italian  and  two  French  git  Is,  who  live  openly  with 
him  ;  but  who  are  obliged  to  keep  themselves,  by  selling  their 
influence  and  protection,  and  perhaps  sometimes  even  their  per- 
sonal favours.  He  has  also  in  his  hotel  several  gambling  tables, 
where  t.<ose  who  are  too  bashful  to  address  themsehts  to  him  or 
his  mistresses,  may  deposit  their  donations,  and  if  they  are 
thought  sufficient,  the  hint  is  taken  and  their  business  done.  He 
never  pays  any  debts,  and  never  buys  any  thing  for  ready  money, 
and  all  persons  of  his  suite,  or  appertaining  to  his  establishment) 
have  the  same  ptivilegei  Troublesome  creditors  are  recom- 
mended to  the  cure  of  the  sp^cLl  tribunals;  w!  ich  also  find 
means  to  reduce  the  obstinacy  of  those  refractory  merchants  or 
traders  who  refuse  giving  any  credit.  Ail  the  money  he  extorts 
or  obtains  is  brought  to  this  capital,  and  laid  out  by  hisagtLts  in 
purchasing  estates,  which,  from  his  advanced  age,  and  weak  con- 
sti'.ution,  he  has  little  prospect  or  long  enjoying.  He  is  a  grand 
officer  of  Buonaparte's  Legion  of  Honour  ;  and  has  a  long  claim 
to  that  distinction,  because,  as  early  as  on  the  25th  of  June,  1790, 
he  made  a  motion  in  the  National  Assembly,  to  suppress  all  for- 
mer Royal  orders  in  France,  and  to  create  in  thtir  place  only  a 
national  one.  Always  an  incorrigible  flatterer,  when  Napoleone 
proclaimed  himself  All  the  Mussulman,  Menou  professed  him- 
self Abdullah  the  believer  in  the  Alcoran. 

The  late  vice-president  of  the  Italian  republic,  Melzi-Eril,  is 
now  in  complete  disgrace  with  his  sovereign,  Napoleone  the  First. 
If  persons  of  rank  and  property  would  read  through  the  list  of 
those,  their  equals  by  birth  and  wealth,  who,  after  being  seduced 
by  the  sophistry  of  impostors,  dishonoured  and  exposed  them- 
selves by  joining  in  the  revolution,  they  might  see  that  none  of 
them  have  escaped  insults,  many  have  suffered  death,  and  all 
frave  been  or  are  vile  slaves,  at  the  mercy  of  the  whip  of  some 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  239 

Upstart  beggar,  and  trampled  upon  by  men  started  up  from  the 
mud  of  lowest  birth  and  basest  morals.  If  their  revolutionary 
mania  were  not  incurable,  this  truth,  and  this  evidence,  would 
retain  them  within  their  duty,  so  corresponding  with  their  real 
interest,  and  prevent  them  from  being  any  longer  borne  along 
by  a  current  of  infamy  and  danger,  and  preserve  them  from  be- 
ing lost  upon  quicksands  or  dashed  against  rocks. 

The  conduct  and  fate  of  the  Italian  nobleman  and  Spanish 
grandee,  Melzi-Eril,  has  induced  me  to  make  these  reflections. 
Wealthy,  as  well  as  elevated,  he  might  have  passed  his  life  in 
uninterrupted  tranquillity,  enjoying  its  comforts  without  expe- 
riencing its  vicissitudes  ;  with  the  esteem  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  without  reproach  from  posterity  or  from  his  own  conscience. 
Unfortunately  for  him,  a  journey  into  this  country  made  him  ac- 
quainted both  with  our  tihihstfihers  and  with  our  philosophical 
works  ;  and  he  had  neither  natural  capacity  to  distinguish  errors 
from  reality,  nor  judgment  enough  to  perceive,  that  what  ap- 
peared improving  and  charming  in  theory?  frequently  became  de- 
structive and  improper  when  attempted  to  be  put  into  practice. 
Returned  to  his  own  country,  his  acquired  half-learning  made 
him  wholly  dissatisfied  with  his  government,  with  his  religion, 
and  with  himself.  In  our  revolution  he  thought  that  he  saw  the 
first  approach  towards  the  perfection  of  the  human  species  ;  and, 
that  it  would  soon  make  mankind  as  good  and  as  regenerated  in 
society  as  was  promised  in  books.  With  our  own  regenerators, 
he  extenuated  the  crimes,  which  sullied  their  work  from  its  first 
page,  raid  declared  them  even  necessary  to  make  the  conclusion 
so  much  the  more  complete.  When,  therefore,  Buonaparte,  in 
1796,  entered  the  capital  of  Lombard}',  Melzi  was  among  the 
first  of  the  Italian  nobility  who  hailed  him  as  a  deliverer. 

The  numerous  vexations,  and  repeated  pillage  of  our  govern- 
ment, generals,  commissaries,  and  soldiers,  did  not  abate  his  zeal, 
nor  alter  his  opinion.  "  The  faults  and  sufferings  of  individuals," 
he  said,  "  are  nothing  to  the  goodness  oi"  the  cause,  and  do  not 
impair  the  utility  of  the  whole."  To  him,  every  thing  the  revo- 
lution produced  was  the  best  ;  the  murder  of  thousands  and  the 
ruin  of  millions  were  with  him  nothing,  compared  with  the  bene- 
fit the  universe  would  one  day  derive  from  the  principles  and 
in  ft  ruction  of  our  armed  and  unarmed  philosophers.  In  recom- 


240  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

pense  for  so  much  complacency,  and  such  great  patriotism,  Buon- 
aparte appointed  him,  in  1797,  a  plenipotentiary  from  the  Cis- 
alpine Republic  to  the  Congress  at  Radstadt ;  and  in  1802,  a 
vice-president  of  the  Italian  Republic. 

As  Mclzi  was  a  sincere  and  disinterested  republican  fanatic, 
he  did  not  much  approve  of  the  strides  Buonaparte  made  to- 
wards a  sovereignty  that  annihilated  the  sovereignty  of  his  sove- 
reign people.  In  a  conference,  however,  with  Talleyrand  at 
Lyons,  in  February,  1 802,  he  was  convinced  that  this  age  was 
not  yet  ripe  for  all  the  improvements  our  philosophers  intend- 
ed to  confer  on  it  ;  and  that  to  prevent  it  from  retrogading  to  the 
point  where  it  was  found  by  our  revolution,  it  was  necessary  that 
it  should  be  ruled  by  enlightened  men,  such  as  he  and  Buona- 
parte, to  whom  he  advised  him  by  all  means,  never  to  give  the 
least  hint  about  liberty  and  equality.  Our  minister  ended  his 
fraternal  counsel  with  obliging  Melzi  to  sign  a  stipulation  for  a 
yearly  sum,  as  a  douceur  for  the  place  he  occupied. 

The  sweets  of  power  shortly  caused  Melzi  to  forget  both  the 
tenets  of  his  philosophy  and  the  schemes  of  regeneration.  He 
trusted  so  much  to  the  promises  of  Buonaparte  and  Talleyrand, 
that  he  believed  himself  destined  to  reign  for  life,  and  was,  there- 
fore, not  a  little  surprised,  when  he  was  ordered  by  Napoleone 
the  First,  to  descend,  and  salute  Eugenius  de  Beauharnois,  as 
the  deputy  sovereign  of  the  sovereign  King  of  Italy.  He  was 
not  philosopher  enough  to  conceal  his  chagrin,  and  bowed  with 
such  a  bad  grace,  to  the  new  Viceroy,  that  it  was  visible  he 
would  have  preferred  seeing  in  that  situation,  an  Austrian  Arch- 
duke, as  a  governor-general.  To  soften  his  disappointment, 
Buonaparte  offered  to  make  him  a  Prince,  and  with  that  rank  in- 
demnify him  for  breaking  the  promises  given  at  Lyons  ;  where 
it  is  known,  that  the  influence  of  Melzi,  more  than  the  intrigues 
of  Talleyrand,  determined  the  Italian  Consulta  in  the  choice  of  a 
president. 

Immediately  after  Buonaparte's  return  to  France,  Melzi 
left  Milan,  and  retired  to  an  estate  in  Tuscany  ;  from  that  place 
he  wrote  to  Talleyrand  a  letter,  full  of  reproach,  and  concluded, 
by  asking  leave  to  pass  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  Spain, 
among  his  relatives.  An  answer  was  presented  him  by  an  offi- 
cer of  Buonaparte's  gens-d'armes  d'FHte,  in  which  he  was  forbid 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  241 

to  quit  Italy,  and  ordered  to  return  with  the  officer  to  Milan, 
and  there  occupy  his  office  of  Arch-Chancellor,  to  which  he  had 
been  nominated.  Enraged  at  such  treatment,  he  endeavoured  to 
kill  himself  with  a  dose  of  poison,  but  his  attempt  did  not  suc- 
ceed. His  health  was,  however,  so  much  injured  by  it,  that  it 
is  not  supposed  he  can  live  long.  What  a  lesson  for  reformers 
and  innovators  ! 


LETTER  LIU. 

JPara,  September ',  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

A  RIDICULOUS  affair  lately  occasioned  a  great  deal  of  bus- 
tle among  the  members  of  our  foreign  diplomatic  corps.  When 
Buonaparte  demanded  for  himself  and  for  his  wife  the  title  of  Im- 
perial Majesty,  and  for  his  brothers  and  sisters  that  of  Imperial 
Highness,  he  also  insisted  on  the  salutation  of  a  Serene  Highness 
being  given  to  his  Arch-Chancellor  Cambaceres,  and  his  Arch- 
Treasurer  Le  Brun.  The  political  consciences  of  the  indepen- 
dent representatives  of  independent  continental  Princes,  imme- . 
cliately  took  the  alarm  at  the  latter  innovation  ;  as  the  appellation 
of  Serene  Highness  has  never,  hitherto,  been  bestowed  on  per- 
sons who  had  net  princely  rank.  They  complained  to  Talley- 
rand, they  petitioned  Buonaparte,  and  they  dispatched  couriers 
to  their  respective  Courts.  The  minister  smiled  ;  the  Emperor 
cursed,  and  their  own  cabinets  deliberated.  All  routes,  all  as- 
semblies, all  circles,  and  all  balls,  were  at  a  stop.  Cambaceres 
applied  to  his  sovereign,  to  support  his  pretensions,  as  connected 
with  his  own  dignity  ;  and  the  diplomatic  corps  held  forward 
their  dignity  as  opposing  the  pretensions  of  Cambaceres.  In  this 
dilemma,  Buonaparte  ordered  all  the  ambassadors,  ministers,  en- 
voys, and  agents  en  masse,  to  the  castle  of  the  Thuilleries.  Af- 
ter hearing,  with  apparent  patience,  their  arguments  in  favour  of 
established  etiquette  and  customs,  he  remained  inflexible,  upon 
the  ground  that  he,  as  master,  had  a  right  to  confer  what  titles  he 
chose,  within  his  own  dominions,  on  his  own  subjects  ;  and  that 
those  foreigners  who  refused  to  submit  to  his  regulaitons,  might 


242  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

return  to  their  own  country.  This  plain  explanation  neither  ef- 
fecting a  conversation,  nor  making  any  impression,  he  grew 
warm,  and  left  the  refractory  diplomatists,  with  these  remarka- 
ble words  :  «  Were  I  to  create  my  Mameluke,  Rostan,  a  King, 
both  you  and  your  masters  should  acknowledge  him  in  that 
rank." 

After  this  conference,  most  of  their  Excellencies  were  seized 
with  terror  and  fear,  and  would,  perhaps,  have  subscribed  to  the 
commands  of  our  Emperor,  had  not  some  of  the  wisest  among 
them  proposed,  and  obtained  the  consent  of  the  rest,  to  apply 
once  more  to  1  alleyrand,  and  purchase  by  some  douceur,  his  as- 
sisUnce  in  this  great  business.  The  heart  of  our  minister  is 
easily  softened ;  and  he  assented  upon  certain  conditions,  to  lay 
r.he  whole  before  his  sovereign,  in  such  a  manner,  that  Camba- 
ceres  should  be  a  made  a  Prince  as  well  as  a  Serene  Highness. 

It  is  said,  that  Buonaparte  was  not  easily  persuaded  to  this 
measure,  and  did  not  consent  to  it,  before  the  minister  remarked, 
that  his  condescension  in  this  insignificant  opposition  to  his  will, 
would  proclaim  his  moderation  and  generosity,  and  empower 
him  to  insist  on  obedience,  when  mutters  of  the  greatest  conse- 
•  quence  sLouid  be  in  question  or  dispute.  Thus  our  regicide 
Gambacerea  owes  his  princely  title  to  the  shallow  intrigues  of 
the  agents  oi'  legitimate  sovereigns.  Their  nicety  in  talking 
'of  innoi'u-ifjns  with  regard  to  him,  after  they  had  without  difficul- 
ty, hailed  a  sans-culoite  an  Emperor,  and  other  sans-culottes 
Imperial  Highnesses,  was  as  absurd  as  improper.  Report, 
however,  states,  what  is  very  probable,  that  they  were  merely 
the  duped  tools  of  "Cambaceres'  ambition  and  vanity,  and  of  Tal* 
leyranu's  corruption  and  cupidity. 

Cambuceres  expected  to  have  been  elevated  to  a  Prince,  on  the 
same  day  that  he  was  made  a  Serene  Highness:  but  Joseph 
Buonaparte  represented  to  his  brother  that  too  many  other 
Princedoms  would  diminish  the  respect  and  value  of  the  Prince- 
doms of  the  Buonaparte  family.  Cambaceres  knew  that  Talley- 
rand had  some  reason  at  that  period  to  be  discontented  with 
seph,  and  therefore  asked  his  advice,  how  lo  get  made  a  Prince, 
against  the  wishes  of  uis  Grand  Elector.  After  some  conside 
ation,  tiie  minister  replied  that  he  was  acquainted  with  one  \v 
which  would,  with  his  support,  certainly  succeed  ;  but  it  requic- 


JO'      ' 

ice,    j 
uic- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

ed  a  million  of  livres  to  set  the  wheels  in  motion,  and  keep  them 
going  afterwards.  The  hint  was  taken,  and  an  agreement  sign- 
ed for  one  million,  payable  en  the  day  when  the  princely  pat:nt 
should  be  delivered  to  the  Arch-Chancellor. 

Among  the  mistresses  provided  by  our  minister  for  the  mem- 
bers of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps,  Madame  B s  is  one  of 

the  ablest  in  the  way  of  intrigue.  She  was  instructed  to  alarm 
her  bonne  aime,  the  Bavarian  minister  Cecto,  who  is  always 
bustling  and  pushing  himself  forwards  in  the  grand  questions  of 
etiquette.  A  fool  rather  than  a  rogue,  and  an  intriguer  while  he 
thinks  himself  a  negotiator,  he  was  happy  to  have  this  occasion 
to  prove  his  penetrating  genius  and  astonishing  information.  A 
convocation  of  the  diplomatic  corps  was  therefore  called,  and  the 
suggestions  of  Cetto  were  regarded  as  an  inspiration,  and  ap- 
proved of,  with  a  resolution  to  persevere  unanimously.  At  their 
first  audience  with  Talleyrand,  on  this  subject,  he  seemed  to  in- 
cline in  their  favour  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  observed  how  much  they 
showed  themselves  interested  about  this  trifling  pu.ictilio,  it  oc- 
cuired  to  him,  that  they  as  well  as  Cambaceres  might  in  some 
way  or  other  reward  the  service  he  intended  to  perform.  Ma- 
dame B s  was  again  sent  for  ;  and  she  once  more  advised 

her  lover,  who  again  advised  Ids  colleagues.  Their  scanty 
purses  were  opened,  and  a  subscription  entered  into  for  a  very 
vaiinbie  diamond,  which,  with  the  million  of  the  Arch-Chancel- 
lor, gave  satisfaction  to  all  parties  ;  and  even  Joseph  Buona- 
parte was  reconciled,  upon  the  consideration  that  Cambaceres  has 
no  ciiii'.;reij,  uiid  that,  therefore,  the  Prince  will  expire  with  the 
Grand  officer  of  State. 

Cambaceres,  though  before  the  Revolution  a  nobleman  of  a 
parliamentary  family,  was  so  degraded  and  despised,  for  his  un- 
natural and  beastly  propensities,  that  to  see  him  in  the  ranks  of 
rebellion  was  not  unexpected.  Born  in  Languedoc,  his  country- 
men were  the  first  to  suffer  from  his  revolutionary  proceedings, 
and  reproached  rdm  as  one  of  the  most  active  instruments  of 
persecution  against  the  clergy  of  Thoulouse,  and  as  one  of  the 
causes  of  all  the  biooci  that  flowed  in  consequence.  A  coward 
as  well  as  a  traitor,  after  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  he  never  dar- 
ed ascend  the  tribune  of  the  National  Convention,  but  always 
gave  a  silent  vote  to  all  the  atrocious  laws  proposed  and  car- 


.044  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

ried  by  Marat,  Robespierre,  and  their  accomplices.  It  was  iii 
;795,  when  the  reign  of  terror  had  ceased,  that  he  first  displayed 
his  zeal  for  anarchy,  and  his  hatred  to  royalty  ;  his  contemptible 
and  disgusting  vices  were,  however,  so  publicly  reprobated,  that 
aven  the  Directory  dared  not  nominate  him  a  minister  of  justice, 
a  place  for  which  he  intrigued,  in  vain,  from  1796  to  1799  ; 
%vhen  Buonaparte,  either  not  so  scrupulous,  or  setting  himsetf 
above  the  public  opinion,  caused  him  to  be  called  to  the  Consu- 
late ;  which,  in  18.02,  was  insured  him  for  life,  but  exchanged  in 
1804rfor  the  office  of  an  Arch-Chancellor. 

He  is  now  worth  thirty  millions  of  livres,  ( 1,250,000/.)  all  honest- 
ly obtained  by  his  revolutionary  industry.  Besides  a  Prince,  a 
Serene  Highness,  an  Arch-Chancellor,  a  Grand  Officer  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  he  is  also  a  Knight  of  the  Prussian  Black  Ea- 
gle !  For  his  brother,  who  was  for  a  long  time  an  emigrant 
clergyman,  and  whom  he  then  renounced  as  a  fanatic,  he  has 
now  procured  the  Archbishoprick  of  Rouen,  and  a  Cardinal's 
hat.  His  eminence  is  also  a  Grand  Officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour  in  France,  and  a  Pope  in  petto  at  Rome. 


LETTER  LIV. 

1'arisj  September,  1805. 

MY  LORD, 

NO  sovereign  prince  has  more  incurred  the  hatred  of  Buon- 
aparte than  the  present  King  of  Sweden  ;  and  I  have  lyearcl  from 
good  authority,  that  our  government  spares  neither  bribes  nor 
intrigues  to  move  the  sails  of  those  factions,  which  were  dissolv- 
ed, but  not  crushed,  after  the  murder  of  Gnstavus  III.  The 
Swedes  are  generally  brave  and  loyal,  but  their  history  bears  wit- 
ness that  they  are  easily  misled  ;  all  their  grand  achievements 
are  their  own,  and  the  consequences  of  their  national  spirit  and 
national  valour,  while  all  their  disasters  have  been  effected  by  the 
influence  of  foreign  gold,  and  of  foreign  machinations.  Had 
they  not  been  the  dupes  of  the  plots  and  views  of  the  cabinets  of 
Versailles  and  St.  Petersburg!!,  their  country  might  have  been 
as  powerful  in  the  nineteenth  century  as  it  was  in  the  seven- 
teenth. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  .245 

That  Gustavus  AdolphusIV.  both  knew  the  danger  of  Europe, 
and  indicated  the  remedy,  his  Majesty's  notes,  as  soon  as  of  age, 
presented  by  the  able  and  loyal  minister  Elicit,  to  the  Diet  of 
Ratisbon,  evince.  Had  they  been  more  attended  to  during  1798 
and  1799,  Buonaparte  would  not  perhaps  have  now  been  so  great, 
but  the  continent  would  have  remained  more  free  and  more  in- 
dependent. They  were  the  first  causes  of  our  Emperor's  official 
anger  against  the  cabinet  of  Stockholm. 

When,  however,  his  Swedish  Majesty  entered  into  the  north- 
ern league,  his  ambassador,  Baron   Ehrensward,  was  for  some 
time  treated  here  with  no  insults  distinct  or  different  from  those 
to  which  all  foreign  diplomatic  agents  have  been  accustomed  to? 
during  the  present  reign  ;  but  when  he  demanded  reparation  for 
the  piracies  committed,  during  the   last  war,  by  our  privateers, 
on  the  commerce    of  his   nation,   the    tone    was  changed ;  and 
when  his  Sovereign,  in  1803,  was  on  a  visit  to  his  father-in-law, 
the  Elector  of  Baden,  and  there    preferred  the  agreeable  compa- 
ny of  the  unfortunate  Duke  d'Enghein  to  the  society  of  our  min- 
ister, Baron  Ehrensward    never  entered  Napoleone's  diplomatic 
circle,  or  Madame  Napoleone's  drawing-room,  without  hearing 
rebukes  and  experiencing  disgusts.     One  day,  when  more  than 
usually  attacked,   he  said,  on   leaving  the  apartment,  to  another 
ambassador,  and  in  the  hearing  of  Duroc,  "  that  it  required  more 
real  courage  to  encounter   with  dignity  and  self-command  uribe^ 
coming  provocations,  which  the  persons  who  gave  them  knew 
could  not  be  resented,  than  to  brave   a  death  which  the  mouths 
of  cannon  vomit,  or  the  points  of  the  bayonet  inflict."  Duroc  re- 
ported to  his  master  what  he  heard,  and,  but  for  Talleyrand's  in- 
terference, the  Swedish    ambassador  would,  on  the  same  night, 
have  been  lodged  in   the   Temple.     Orders  were  already  given 
for  that  purpose,  but  were  revoked. 

This  Baron  Ehrensward,  who  is  also  a  general  in  the  service  of 
his  country,  has  almost  from  his  youth  passed  his  dine  at  courts  ; 
first  in  his  own  counry,  and  afterwards  in  Spain,  where  he  resi- 
ded twelve  years  as  our  ambassador.  Frank  as  a  soldier,  but  al- 
so polite  as  a  courtier,  he  was  not  a  little  surprised  at  the  new 
etiquette  of  our  new  court,  and  at  the  endurance  of  all  tne  mem- 
bers of  the  diplomatic  corps,  of  whom  hardly  one  had  spirit 
enough  to  remember  that  he  was  the  representative  of  one?  at 

Y  2  • 


246  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

least  nominally  independent  prince  or  state.     It  must  be  auc 
ed,  that   he   was  the  only  foreign  diplomatist  with  Count  Mar 
koff,  who  was  not  the  choice  of  our  cabinet,   and  therefore  wa:- 
not  in  our  secrets. 

As  soon  as  his  Swedish  Majesty  heard  of  the  unexpected  and 
unlawful  seizure  of  the  Duke  d'Enghcin,  he  wrote  a  letter  with 
his  own  hand  to  Buonaparte,  which  he  sent  by  his  Adjutant-Ge- 
neral Tawast  ;  but  this  officer  arrived  too  late,  and  only  in  time 
to  hear  of  the  execution  of  the  prince  he  intended  to  save,  and 
the  indecent  expressions  of  Napoleone,  when  acquainted  with  the 
object  of  his  mission.  Baron  Ehrensward  was  then  recalled, 
and  a  court  mourning  ordered  by  Gustavus  Adolphus  IV.  as 
well  as  by  Alexander  the  First,  for  the  lamented  victim  of  the 
violated  laws  of  nations  and  humanity.  This  so  enraged  our  ru- 
ler, that  General  Caulincourt  (the  same  who  commanded  the  ex- 
pedition which  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  captured  the  Duke 
d'Enghein)  was  engaged  to  head  and  lead  fift\  other  banditti 
who  were  destined  to  pass  in  disguise  into  Baden,  and  to  bring  the 
King  of  Sweden  a  prisoner  to  this  capital ;  fortunately,  his  Majesty 
had  some  suspicion  of  the  attempt,  and  removed  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  our  frontiers  than  Carlsruhe.  So  certain  was  our 
government  of  the  success  of  this  shameful  enterprize,  that  our 
charge  d'affaires  in  Sweden  was  preparing  to  engage  the  discon- 
tented and  disaffected  there  for  the  convocation  of  a  diet,  arid 
the  establishment  of  a  regency. 

According  to  the  report  in  our  diplomatic  circle,  Buonaparte 
and  Talleyrand  intended  never  more  to  release  their  royal  cap- 
live,  when  once  in  their  power  ;  but,  after  forcing  him  to  resign 
the  throne  to  his  son,  keep  him  a  prisoner  for  the  remainder  of 
his  days,  which  they  would  have  taken  care  should  not  have 
been  long.  The  Duke  of  Sudermania  was  to  have  been  nomi- 
nated a  regent  until  the  majority  of  the  young  king,  not  yet  six 
years  of  age.  The  Swedish  diets  were  to  recover  that  iniluence, 
or  rather  that  licentiousness,  to  which  Gustavus  III.  by  the  re- 
volution of  the  19th  of  August,  1772,  put  an  end.  All  exiled 
regicides  or  traitors,  were  to  be  recalled,  aad  a  revolutionary  fo- 
cus organized  in  the  north,  equally  threatening  Russia  and 
Denmark.  The  dreadful  consequences  of  such  an  event  are  in- 
calculable. Thanks  to  the  prudence  of  his  Swedish  Majesty,  all 
these  schemes  evaporated  in  air. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUI>  24" 

Not  being  able  to  dethrone  a  Swedish  monarch,  our  cabinet  re 
solved  to  partition  the  Swedish  territory  ;  to  which  effect  I  am  as- 
sured that  proposals  were  last  summer  made  to  the  cabinets  of 
St.  Petersburg!!,  Berlin,  and  Copenhagen.  Swedish  Finland  was 
stated  to  have  been  offered  to  Russia,  Swedish  Pomerania  to 
Prussia,  and  Scania  and  Bleking  to  Denmark  ;  but  the  overture 
was  rejected. 

The  king  of  Sweden  possesses  both  talents  and  information, 
superior  to  most  of  his  contemporaries  :  and  he  has  surrounded 
himself  with  counsellors  who,  with  their  experience,  make  wis- 
dom more  firm,  more  useful,  and  more  valuable.  His  chancel- 
lor, d'Ehrenheim,  unites  modesty  with  sagacity ;  he  is  a  most 
•able  statesman,  an  accomplished  gentleman,  and  the  most  agree- 
able of  men.  He  knows  the  languages;  as  well  as  the  constitu- 
tions of  every  country  in  Europe,  with  equal  perfection  as  his  na- 
tive tongue  and  national  code.  Had  his  sovereign  the  same  as- 
cendancy over  the  European  politics  as  Christiana  had  during 
the  negotiation  of  the  treaty  of  Munster,  other  states  would  ad- 
mire and  Sweden  be  proud  of  another  Axel  Oxenstierna. 

Count  de  Fersen,  who  also  has,  and  is  woithy  of  the  confi- 
dence of  his  prince,  is  a  nobleman,  the  honour  and  pride  of  his 
rank.  A  colonel,  before  the  revolution,  of  the  regiment  Royal 
Suedois,  in  the  service  of  my  country,  his  principles  were  so  well 
appreciated,  that  he  was  entrusted  by  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  An- 
toinette, when  so  many  were  justly  suspected,  and  served  royalty 
in  distress,  at  the  risk  of  his  own  existence.  This  was  so  much 
the  more  generous  in  him,  as  he  was  a  foreigner,  of  one  of  the 
most  ancient  families,  and  one  of  the  richest  noblemen  in  his 
own  country.  To  him  Louis  XVIII.  is  indebted  for  his  life  ; 
and  he  brought  consolation  to  the  deserted  Marie  Antoinette 
even  in  the  dungeon  of  the  Conciergerie,  when  a  discovery 
would  have  been  a  sentence  of  death.  In  1797,  he  was  appoint- 
ed by  his  king  plenipotentiary  to  the  Congress  of  Radstadt,  and 
arrived  there  just  at  the  time  when  Buonaparte,  after  the  de- 
struction of  happiness  in  Italy,  had  resolved  on  the  ruin  of  liber- 
ty in  Switzerland,  and  came  there  proud  of  past  exploits,  and  big 
with  future  schemes  of  mischief.  His  reception  from  the  con- 
queror of  Italy  was  such  as  might  have  been  expected  by  dis- 
tinguished loyalty  from  successful  rebellion,  He  was  tolcj  that 


i48  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  Congress  of  Radstadt  was  not  his. place  ! — and  this  was  true  ^ 
for  what  can  be  common  between  honour  and  infamy,  between 
virtue  and  vice  ?  On  his  return  to  Sweden,  Count  de  Fersen  was 
rewarded  with  the  dignity  of  a  grand  officer  of  state. 

Of  another  £dtkful  and  trusty  counsellor  of  his  Swedish  Ma- 
jesty, Baron  d'Armfeldt,  a  paneg-yric  would  be  pronounced,  in 
saying  that  he  was  the  friend  of  Gustavus  III.  From  a  page  to 
that  chevalier  of  royalty,  he  was  advanced  to  the  rank  of  gene- 
ral;  and  during  the  war  with  Russia,  in  1789  and  1790,  he 
fought  and  bled  by  the  side  of  his  prince  and  benefactor.  It  was 
to  him  that  his  King  said,  when  wounded  mortally,  by  the  hand 
of  a  regicide,  at  a  masquerade,  in  March,  1 792,  "  Don't  be  alarm- 
ed, my  friend  !  You  know  as  v.ell  as  myself,  that  all  wounds  are 
not  dangerous."  Unfortunately  his  were  not  of  that  description. 

In  the  will  of  this  great  monarch,  Baron  d'Armfeldt  was  nomi- 
nated one  of  the  guardians  of  his  present  sovereign,  and  a  go- 
vernor of  the  capital  ;  but  the  Duke  Regent,  who  was  a  weak 
prince,  guided  by  philosophical  adventurers,  by  illuminati  and 
free -masons,  most  of  whom  lutd  imbibed  French  revolutionary 
maxims,  sent  him,  in  a  kind  of  honourable  exile,  as  an  ambassa- 
dor to  Italy.  Shortly  afterwards,  under  pretence  of  having  dis- 
covered a  conspiracy,  in  which  the  Baron  was  implicated,  he  was 
outlawed  ;  he  then  took  refuge  in  Russia,  where  he  was  made  a 
general,  and  as  such  distinguished  himself  under  Suwarrow,  du- 
ring the  campc-.kn  of  1799.  He  was  then  recalled  to  i.is  country, 
and  restored  to  all  his  former  places  and  dignities,  and  has  never 
since  ceased  to  merit  and  obtain  the  favour,  friendship,  and  ap- 
probation of  I  is  King.  He  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  Swedish  ge- 
neral officers  intended  to  serve  in  union  with  the  Russian  troops 
expected  in  Pomsrania.  Wherever  he  is  employed,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  he  will  fight,  vanquish,  or  perish  like  a  hero.  Last 
spring  he  was  offered  the  place  of  a  lieutenant-general  in  the 
Austrian  service,  which,  with  regard  to  salary  and  emoluments, 
is  greatly  superior  to  what  he  enjoys  in  Sweden  ;  he  declined  it, 
however  ;  because,  with  a  warrior  of  his  stump,  interest  is  the 
last  consideration. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.         249 

LETTER  LV. 

Pari.?)    Se/itcntber,    1805. 
MY  LORD, 

BELIEVE  me,  Buonaparte  dreads  more  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  than  all  other  engines,  military  or  political,  used  by  his  rivals 
or  foes  for  his  destruction.  lie  is  aware  of  the  fatal  consequences 
all  former  factions  suffered  from  the  public  exposure  of  past 
crimes  and  future  views  ;  of  the  reality  of  their  guilt,  and  of  the 
fallacy  of  their  boasts  and  promises.  He  does  not  doubt,  but  that 
u  faithful  account  of  all  the  actions  and  intrigues  of  his  govern- 
ment, its  imposition,  fraud,  duplicity,  and  tyranny,  would  make 
a  sensible  alteration  in  the  public  opinion  ;  and  that  even  those 
who,  from  motives  of  patriotism,  from  being  tired  of  our  revolu- 
tionary convulsions,  or  wishing  for  tranquillity,  have  been  his  ad- 
herents, might  alter  their  sentiments,  when  they  read  of  enormi- 
ties which  must  indicate  insecurity,  and  prove  to  every  one,  that 
he  who  waded  through  rivers  of  blood  to  seize  power,  will  never 
hesitate  about  the  means  of  preserving  it. 

There  is  not  a  printing  office,  from  the  banks  of  the  Elbe  to 
the  gulf  of  Naples,  which  is  not  under  the  direct  or  indirect  in- 
spection of  our  police  agents  ;  and  not  a  bookseller  in  Germany^ 
France,  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  or  Switzerland,  publishes 
a  work,  which,  if  contrary  to  our  policy  or  our/<?a?-*,  is  not  ei- 
ther confiscated  or  purchased  on  the  day  it  makes  its  appearance. 
Besides  our  regular  emissaries,  we  have  persons  travelling  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  year,  to  pick  up  information  of 
what  literary  productions  are  printing  ;  of  what  authors  are  po- 
pular, of  their  political  opinions,  and  private  circumstances. — 
This  branch  of  our  haute  police  extends  even  to  your  country. 

Before  the  revolution,  we  had  in  this  capital  only  two  daily 
papers,  but  from  J789  to  1799,  never  less  than  thirty,  and  fre- 
quently sixty  journals  were  daily  printed.  After  Buonaparte 
had  assumed  the  Consular  authority,  they  were  reduced  to  ten, 
But  though  these  were  under  a  very  strict  inspection  of  our  mi- 
nister of  police,  they  were  regarded  still  as  too  numerous,  and 
have  lately  been  diminished  to  eight,  by  the  incorporation  of  Le 
Clefdu  Cabinet,  and  LK  Bulletin  de  rEuro/ie,  with  Gazette  de 
Prance,  a  paper  of  which  the  infamously  famous  Barrere  is  the 
editor.  According  to  a  proposal  of  Buonaparte,  it  v?s  lately  de* 


»&  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

/ 

bated  in  the  council  of  state,  whether  it  would  not  be  politic  tw 
suppress  all  daily  prints,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  Monitcur. 
Fouche  and  Talleyrand  spoke  much  in  favour  of  this  measure  of 
security.  Real,  however,  is  said  to  have  suggested  another  plan, 
which  was  adopted  ;  and  our  government,  instead  of  prohibiting 
the  appearance  of  our  daily  papers,  has  resolved  by  degrees  to 
purchase  them  a//,  and  entrust  them  entirely  to  the  direction  of 
Barrere,  who  is  now  consulted  in  every  thing,  concerning  books 
or  newspapers. 

All  circulation  of  foreign  papers  is  prohibited,  until  they  have 
previously  obtained  the  stamji  of  approbation  from  the  grand  li- 
terary censor,  Barrere.  Any  person  offending  against  this  law, 
is  most  severely  punished.  An  American  gentleman  by  the 
name  of  Campbell,  was  last  spring  sent  to  the  Temple,  for  lend- 
ing one  of  your  oicl  daily  papers  to  a  person  who  lodged  in  the 
same  hotel  with  him.  After  an  imprisonment  oi  ttn  weeks,  he 
made  some  pecuniary  sacrifices  to  obtain  his  liberty  ;  but  was 
carried  to  Havre,  under  an  escort  of  gens-d'armes,  put  on  board  a 
neutral  vesstl,  and  forbade,  under  pain  of  death,  ever  to  set  his 
foot  on  French  ground  again.  An  American  vessel  was,  about 
the  same  time,  confiscated  at  Bourdeaux,  and  the  captain  and 
crew  imprisoned,  because  some  English  books  were  found  on 
board,  in.  which  Buonaparte,  Talleyrand,  Fouche,  and  some  of  our 
great  men,  were  rather  ill  treated.  The  crew  has  since  been 
liberated,  but  the  captain  has  been  brought  here,  and  is  still  in 
the  Temple.  The  vessel  and  cargo  has  been  sold  as  lawful  cap- 
tures, though  the  captain  has  proved,  from  the  name  written  in 
the  books,  that  they  belonged  to  a  passenger.  A  young  German 
student  in  surgery,  who  came  here  to  improve  himself,  has  been 
nine  months  in  the  same  state  prison,  for  having  with  him  a  book 
printed  in  Germany,  during  Buonaparte's  expedition  to  Egypt, 
wherein  the  chief  and  the  undertaking  are  ridiculed.  His  mo- 
ther, the  widow  of  a  clergyman,  hearing  of  the  misfortune  of  her 
son,  came  here,  and  has  presented  to  the  Emperor  and  Empress, 
half  a  dozen  petitions,  without  any  effect  whatever,  and  has  al- 
most ruined  herself  and  her  other  children,  by  the  expenses  of 
the  journey.  During  a  stay  ot  four  months,  she  has  not  yet  been 
able  to  gain  admittance  into  the  Temple,  to  visit  or  see  her  son  ; 
who,  perhaps,  expired  in  tortures,  or  died  broken  hearted,  before 
she  came  here,v 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  135  i 

A  dozen  copies  of  a  funeral  sermon  on  the  duke  d'Enghien 
had  found  their  way  here,  and  were  secretly  circulated  for  seme 
time;  but  at  last  the  police  heard  of  it,  and  every  person  who 
was  suspected  of  having  read  them  was  arrested.  The  number 
of  these  unfortunate  persons,  according  to  some,  amounted  to  one 
hundred  and  thirty,  while  others  say,  that  they  were  only  eighty- 
four,  of  whom  twelve  died  suddenly  in  the  Temple,  and  the  re- 
mainder were  transported  to  Cayenne  ;  upwards  of  half  of  them 
were  women,  some  of  the  ci'd^vant  highest  rank  among  subjects 
A  Prussian  of  the  name  of  Bulow,  was  shot  as  a  spy  in  the  camp 
of  Boulogne,  because  in  his  trunk  was  an  English  book,  with 
the  lives  of  Buonaparte  and  of  some  of  his  generals.  Every  day, 
such  and  other  examples  of  the  severity  of  our  government  are 
related  ;  and  foreigners  who  visit  us  continue  nevertheless  to  be 
off  their  guard.  They  would  be  less  punished  had  they  with 
them  forged  bills,  rather  than  printed  books  or  newspapers,  in 
which  our  Impeual  Family,  and  public  functionaries,  are  not 
.treated  with  due  respect.  Buonaparte  is  convinced  that  in  eve- 
ry book  where  he  is  not  spoken  of  with  praise,  the  intent  is  to 
blame  him  ;  and  such  intents  or  negative  guilt,  never  escape 
with  impunity. 

As,  notwithstanding  the  endeavours  of  cur  government,  we 
are  more  fond  of  foreign  prints,  and  have  more  confidence  in 
them  than  in  our  own,  official  presses  have  lately  been  established 
at  Antwerp,  at  Cologne,  and  at  Mentz,  where  the  (iazette  de  Ley- 
den,  Hamburgh  Correspondenten,  and  Journal  de  Frankfort,  are 
reprinted,  some  articles  left  out,  and  others  inserted  in  their 
room.  It  was  intended  to  reprint  also  the  Courier  de  Lonclres, 
but  our  types,  and  particularly  our  paper,  would  detect  the  fraud , 
I  have  read  one  of  our  own  Journal  de  Frankfort,  in  which  were 
extracts  from  this  French  paper,  printed  in  your  country,  which 
I  strongly  suspect  are  of  our  own  manufactory.  I  am  told  that 
several  new  books,  written  by  fordgntrs,  in  praise  of  cur  pre- 
sent brilliant  government,  are  now  in  the  presses  of  those  of  our 
frontier  towns,  and  will  soon  be  laid  before  the  public  us  foreign 
productions, 

A  clerk  of  a  banking-house  had  lately  the  impudence  to  men- 
tion,-during  his  dinner  at  the  restaurateur's  of  Cud-run  Vert*  on 
the  Boulevards,  some  doubt  of  the  veracity  of  an  official  ar>  • 


252  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  Moniteur.  As  he  left  the  house  he  was  arrested,  carried  be- 
fore Fouche,  accused  of  being  an  English  agent,  and  before  sup- 
per-time, he  was  on  the  road  to  Rochefort,  on  his  way  to  Cay- 
enne. As  soon  as  the  banker  Tournon  was  informed  of  this 
expeditions  justice,  as  it  is  called  here,  he  waited  on  Fouche,  who 
threatened  even  to  transport  him,  if  he  dared  to  interfere  with  the 
transactions  of  the  police.  This  banker  was  himself  seized  in 
the  spring  last  year,  by  a  police  agent,  and  gens-d'armes,  and 
carried  into  exile,  forty  leagues  from  this  capital,  where  he  re- 
mained six  months,  until  a  pecuniary  douceur  procured  him  a  re- 
cal.  His  crime  was  the  having  inquired  after  General  Moreau 
\vhen  in  the  temple,  and  of  having  left  his  card  there. 


LETTER    LVI. 

Paris,  September,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

THE  Prince  of  Borghese  has  lately  been  appointed  a  captain 
of  the  Imperial  guard  of  his  Imperial  brother-in-law,  Napoleone 
the  First,  and  is  now  in  Germany,  making  his  first  campaign.  A 
descendant  of  a  wealthy  and  ancient  Roman  family,  but  born 
Tvith  a  weak  understanding,  he  was  easily  deluded  into  the  rank 
of  the  Revolutionists  of  his  own  country,  by  a  Parisian  Abbe,  his 
instructor  and  governor,  and  the  gallant  of  the  Princess  Borghese 
his  mother.  lie  was  the  first  secretary  of  the  first  jacobin  club 
established  at  Rome,  in  the  spring  1798;  and  in  December  the 
same  year  when  the  Neapolitan  troops  invaded  the  Ecclesiastical 
States,  he,  with  his  present  brother-in-law,  another  hopeful  Ro- 
man Prince,  Santa  Cruce,  headed  the  Roman  sans-culottcs  in 
their  retreat.  To  show  his  love  of  equality,  he  had  previously 
served  as  a  common  man  in  a  company,  of  which  the  captain 
was  a  fellow  that  sold  cat's*meat  and  tripe  in  the  streets  of  Rome, 
and  the  lieutenant  a  scullion  of  his  mother's  kitchen.  Since  Im- 
perial aristocracy  is  ROW  become  the  order  of  the  day,  he  is  as 
insupportable  for  his  pride  and  vanity,  as  he  some  years  ago  was 
contemptible  for  his  meanness.  He  married,  in  1803,  Madame 
Le  Clerc,  who  between  the  death  of  a  first  and  a  wedding  with  a 
second  husband,  a  space  of  twelve  months,  had  twice  been  in  a 
-fair  way  to  become  a  mother.  Her  portion  was  estimated  a' 


COURT  OF  ST., CLOUD.  25* 

eighteen  millions  oflivres,  (750,000/.)  a  sum  sufficient  to  palliate 
many  faux  pas ,  in  the  eyes  of  a  husband  more  sensible  and  more 
tlelicate  than  her  present  Serene  Idiot,  as  she  styles  the  Prince  of 
Borghese. 

This  lady  is  the  favourite  sister  of  Napoleone,  the  ablest,  but 
also  the  most  wicked  of  the  female  Buonapartes.  She  has,  al- 
most from  her  infancy,  passed  through  all  the  filth  of  prostitu- 
tion, debauchery,  and  profligacy,  before  she  attained  her  pre- 
sent elevation  ;  rank,  however,  has  not  altered  her  morals,  but 
only  procured  her  the  means  of  indulging  in  new  excesses.  E  ver 
since  the  wedding  night,  the  Prince  of  Borghese  has  been  ex- 
cluded from  her  bed  ;  for  she  declared  frankly  to  him,  as  well 
as  to  her  brother,  that  she  would  never  endure  the  approach  of 
a  man  with  a  bad  breath  ;  though  many,  who,  from  the  oppor- 
tunities they  have  had  of  judging,  certainly  ought  to  know,  pre- 
tend that  her  own  breath  is  not  the  sweetest  in  the  world. 
When  her  husband  had  marched  towards  the  Rhine,  she  asked 
her  brother,  as  a  favour,  to  procure  the  Prince  of  Borghese, 
after  an  useless  life,  a  glorious  death.  This  curious  demand  of  a 
wife  was  made  in  Madame  Buonaparte's  drawing-room,  in  the  \J 
presence  of  fifty  persons.  "  You  are  always  etourdie"  replied 
Napoleone,  smiling. 

If  Buonaparte,  however,  overlooks  the  intrigues  of  his  sisters? 
he  is  not  so  easly  pacified,  when  any  reports  reach  him,  incul- 
pating the  virtues  of  his  sisters-in-law.  Some  gallants  of  Ma- 
dame Joseph  Buonaparte,  have  already  disappeared  to  return  no 
more,  or  are  wandering  in  tire  wilds  of  Cayenne  ;  but  the  Empe- 
ror is  particularly  attentive  to  every  thing  concerning  the  morality 
t)f  Madame  Louis,  whose  ^descendants  are  destined  to  continue 
the  Buonaparte  dynasty.  Two.  officers,  after  being  cashiered, 
were,  with  two  of  Madame"  Louis's  maids,  shut  up  last  month  in 
the  Teinpk,  and. have  net  since  been  heard  of,  upon  suspicion 
that  the  Princess  preferred  their  society  to  that  of  her  husband, 

Louis  Buonaparte,  whose  constitution  has  been  much  impair- 
ed by  his  debaucheries,'  was  last  July  advised  by  his  physicians 
to  use  the  baths  at  .St.  Amand.  'After  his  wife  had  accompanied 
•him  as  far  as  Lilie,  she  went  to  visit  one  of  her  friends,  Madame 
Ney,  the  wife  of  general  Ney,  who  commanded  the  camp. near 
Montreuil.  This  lady  resided  in  a  castle  called  LecT,  jn,  the 
vicinity,  where  dinners,  concerts,  Halls/  an3  o'tlier  festivities^ 


^54  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

celebrated  the  arrival  of  the  Princess  ;  and  to  these  the  princi- 
pal officers  of  the  camp  were  invited.  One  morning,  about  an 
hour  after  the  company  had  retired  to  bed,  the  whole  castle  was 
disturbed  and  alarmed  by  an  uproar  in  the  anti-room  of  Princess 
Louis's  bed-chamber  :  on  coming  to  the  scene  of  riot,  two  offi- 
cers were  found  there  fighting,  and  the  Princess  Eouis  more  than 
half  undressed,  came  out  and  called  the  sentries  on  duty  to  se- 
parate the  combatants,  who  were  both  wounded.  This  affair 
occasioned  great  scandal ;  and  General  Ney,  after  having  put 
the  officers  under  arrest,  sent  a  courier  to  Napoleone  at  Bou- 
logne, relating  the  particulars,  and  demanding  his  Majesty's  or- 
ders. It  was  related  and  believed  as  a  fact,  that  the  quarrel  ori- 
ginated about  two  of  the  maids  of  the  Princess  (whose  virtue  was 
never  suspected)  with  whom  the  officers  were  intriguing.  The 
Emperor  ordered  the  culprits  to  be  broken,  and  delivered  up  to 
his  minister  of  police,  who  knew  how  to  proceed.  The  Princess 
Louis  also  received  an  invitation  to  join  her  sister-in-law,  Madame 
Murat,  then  in  the  camp  at  Boulogne,  and  to  remain  under  her 
care  until  her  husband's  return  from  St.  Amand. 

General  Murat  was  then  at  Paris,  and  his  lady  was  merely  on 
a  visit  to  her  Imperial  brother,  who  made  her  responsible  for 
Madame  Louis,  whom  he  severely  reprimanded  for  the  miscon- 
duct of  her  maids.  The  bed-rooms  of  the  two  sisters  were  on 
the  same  floor ;  one  night  Princess  Louis  thought  she  heard  the 
footsteps  of  a  person  on  the  stair-case,  not  like  those  of  a  female, 
and  afterwards  the  door  of  Madame  Mural's  room  opened  softly. 
This  occurrence  deprived  her  of  all  desire  to  sleep  ;  and  curiosity 
or  perhaps  revenge  excited  her  to  remove  her  doubts  concerning 
the  virtue  of  her  guardian.  In  about  an  hour  afterwards,  she 
stole  into  Madame  Mural's  bed-room,  by  the  way  of  their  sitting 
room,  the  door  in  the  passage  being  bolted.  Passing  her  hand 
over  the  pillow,  she  almost  pricked  herself  with  the  strong  beard 
of  a  man,  and  screaming  out,  awoke  her  sister,  who  inquired 
what  she  could  want  at  such  an  unusual  hour.  "  I  believe,'*  re-* 
plied  the  Princess,"  my  room  is  haunted,  I  have  not  shut  my 
eyes,  and  intended  to  ask  for  a  place  by  your  side,  but  I  find  it 
is  already  engaged."  "  My  maid  always  sleeps  with  me  when  my 
husband  is  absent,"  said  Madame  Murat.  "  It  is  very  rude  of 
your  maid  to  go  to  bed  with  her  mistress,  without  first  shaving 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  255 

herself,"  said  the  Princess,  and  left  the  room.  The  next  morn- 
ing an  explanation  took  place  ;  the  ladies  understood  each  other, 
and  each  during  the  remaining  part  of  her  husband's  absence, 
had  for  consolation,  a  r.mid  for  a  bed  fellow. — Madame  Murat 
fllso  convinced  the  Emperor  that  his  suspicions  with  regard  to 
the  Princess  Louis  were  totally  unfounded  ;  and  he,  with  some 
precious  presents,  indemnified  her  for  his  harsh  treatment. 

It  is  reported,  that  the  two  maids  of  Princess  Louis,  when  before 
Fouche,  first  denied  all  acquaintance  with  the  officers  ;  but  being 
threatened  with  tortures,  they  signed  a  firoces  -verbal,  acknow- 
ledging their  guilt.  This  valuable  and  authentic  document  the 
minister  sent  by  an  extra  courier  to  the  Emperor,  who  showed  it 
to  his  step-daughter.  Her  generosity  is  proverbial  here,  and 
therefore  nobody  is  surprised  that  she  has  given  a  handsome 
sum  ot  money  to  the  parents  of  her  maids,  who  had  in  vain  ap- 
plied to  see  their  children  ;  Fouche  having  told  them  affairs  of 
state  still  required  their  confinement.  One  of  them,  Mariothe, 
has  been  in  the  service  of  the  Princess  ever  since  her  marriage, 
and  is  known  to  possess  all  her  confidence  ;  though  during  that 
period  of  four  years  she  has  twice  been  in  a  state  of  pregnancy, 
through  the  condescending  attentions  of  her  princely  master. 


LETTER  LVII. 

Paris,   September^   1805, 

MY  LORD, 

WHEN  preparations  were  made  for  the  departure  of  our  Ar- 
my of  England  for  Germany,  it  excited  both  laughter  and  mur- 
muring among  the  troops.  Those  who  always  had  regarded 
the  conquest  of  England  as  impracticable  in  present  circumstan- 
ces, laughed ;  and  those  who  had  in  their  imagination  shared 
the  wealth  of  your  country,  showed  themselves  vexed  at  their 
disappointment.  To  keep  them  in  good  spirits,  the  company 
of  the  theatre  of  the  Vaudevilles  were  ordered  from  hence  to 
Boulogne,*"and  several  plays  composed  for  the  occasion  were  per- 
formed, in  which  the  Germans  were  represented  as  defeated,  and 
the  English  begging  for  peace  on  their  knees,  which  the  Em- 
peror of  the  French  grants,  upon  condition  that  one  hundred 
guineas,  ready  money,  should  be  paid  to  each  of  his  soldiers  and 


256  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

sailors.  Every  corps  in  its  turn  was  admitted  gratis,  to  witness 
this  exhibition  of  the  end  of  all  their  labours ;  and  you  can  form 
no  idea  what  effect  it  produced,  though  you  are  not  a  stranger  to 
our  fickle  and  inconsiderate  character.  Ballads,  with  the  same 
predictions,  and  the  same  promises,  were  written,  and  distri- 
buted among  the  soldiers,  and  sung  by  women  sent  by  Fouche 
to  the  coast.  As  all  productions  of  this  sort  were,  as  usual,  li- 
berally rewarded  by  the  Emperor,  they  poured  in  from  all  parts 
of  his  empire. 

Three  poets  and  authors  for  the  theatre  of  the  Vaudevilles, 
Barre,  Radet,  and  Desfontaines,  received  each  two  hundred  Na- 
poleone's  d'ors,  for  their  common  production  of  a  ballad,  called 
"  les  adieux  d'un  Grenadier  du  Camfi  de  Boulogne ;"  from  this, 
I  have  extracted  the  following  sample,  by  which  you  may  judge 
of  the  remainder  : 

Le  tambour  bat ;  il  faut  partir : 

Ailleurs  on  nous  appelle  : 
Et  de  lauriers,  il  va  s'offrir 

Une  moisson  nouvelle. 
Si  la-bas  ils  sont  assez  fous 

Pour  troubler  1'Allemagne, 
Tant  pis  pour  eux,   tant  mieux  pour  nous  > 

Aliens  :    vite  en  carnpagne  ! 

La  par  ses  exploits  £clatans 

On  connoit  notre  armee  ; 
C'est  la  qu'elle  est  depuis  long-temps 

A  vaincre  accoutumee  ; 
C'est  la  que  nos  braves  guerriers 

Vont  triompher  d'emblee ; 
C'est  le  pays  ou  les  lauriers 

Sont  en  couple  reglee. 

Adieu,  mon  cher  petit  jardin, 

Ma  cabane  jolie, 
Toi  que  j'ai  plant6  de  ma  main, 

Et  toi  que  j'ai  batie  I 
Puisqu'il  faut  prendre  mon  mousquet, 

Et  quitter  ma  chaumiere, 
Je  m'en  vais  planter  le  piquet 

Par  de-la  la  frontiere. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  25? 

Adieu,  poules,  pigeons,  lapins, 

Et  ma  chatte  gentille, 
Autour  de  moi  tous  les  matins 

Rassembles  en  famille  1 
Toi  mon  chien,  ne  me  qukte  pas 

Compagnon  de  ma.gloirc9 
Tu  clois  toujours  suivre  mes  pas  : 

Ton  noin  est  la  Victoire. 

SANS  ADIEU,  peniches,  bateaux, 

Frames  et  eannonieres, 
Qui  deviez  porter  sur  les  eaux 

Nos  braves  militaires  1 
Vous,  ne  soyez  pas  si  contens, 

Messieurs  de  la  Tamise  : 
Seulement  pour  quelques  instans 

La  partie  est  remise  I 


THE  GRENADIER'S  ADIEU 

TO  THE  CAMP  AT  BOULOGNE. 

The  drum  is  beating,  we  must  march, 

We're  summon'd  to  another  field, 
A  field  that  to  our  conq'u'ring  swords 

Shall  soon  a  laurel  harvest  yield. 
If  English  folly  light  the  torch 

Of  war  in  Germany  again—- 
The loss  is  theirs — the  gain  is  ours — 

March  1  march  !  commence  the  bright  campaign, 

There,  only  by  their  glorious  deeds 

Our  chiefs  and  gallant  bands  are  known  ..j 
There,  often  have  they  met  their  foes, 
And  victory  was  all  their  own  : — 

There,  hostile  ranks,  at  our  approach, 
Prostrate  beneath  our  feet  shall  bow  : 

There,  smiling  conquest  waits  to  twine 
^;.  laurel  wreath  round  every  brow, 

2  2 


258  SECRET  HISTORY  OF   TH1 

Adieu,  my  pretty  turf-built  hut  1* 
Adieu,  my  little  garden*  too  i 

I  made,  I  deck'd  you  all  myself, 
And  I  am  loth  to  part  \vith  you  : 

But  since  my  arms  I  must  resume. 
And  leave  your  comforts  all  behind, 

Upon  the  hostile  frontier  soon 
My  tent  shall  flutter  in  the  wind. 

My  pretty  fowls  and  doves  adieu  ! 

Adieu,  my  playful  cat  to  thee  ! 
Who  every  morning  round  me  came? 

And  form'd  my  little  family. 
But  thee,  my  dog,  I  shall  not  leave — 

No,  thou  shalt  ever  follow  me, 
Shalt  share  my  toils,  shalt  share  my  fame — 

For  thou  art  called  VICTORY. 

But  no  farewel  I  bid  to  you, 

Ye  praams,  and  boats,  who,  o'er  the  wave. 
Were  doom'd  to  waft  to  England's  shore 

Our  hero  chiefs,  our  soldiers  brave. 
To  you,  good  gentlemen  of  Thames, 

Soon,  soon  our  visit  shall  be  paid, 
Soon,  slpon  your  merriment  be  o'*er, — 

'Tis  but  a  few  short  hours  delay 'd. 

As  I  am  writing  on  the  subject  of  poetical  agents,  I  will  also 
say  some  words  of  our  poetical  flatterers,  though  the  same  per- 
sons frequently  occupy  both  the  one  office  and  the  other.  A  man 
of  the  name  of  Richaud,  who  sang  formerly  the  glory  of  Marat 
and  Robespierre,  offered  to  Buonaparte,  on  the  evening  preceding 
his  departure  for  Strasburgb,  the  following  lines  ;  and  was  in  re- 
turn presented  with  a  purse  full  of  gotf,  and  an  order  to  the  mi- 
nister of  the  interior,  Champagny,  to  be  employed  in  his  offices. 
until  better  provided  for. 

*  During-  the  long1  continuance  of  the  French  encampment  at  Bou- 
logne, the  troops  had  formed,  at  it  were,  a  romantic  town  of  huts.  Eve- 
ry hut  had  a  garden  surrounding-  it,  kept  in  excellent  order,  and  stock- 
ed with  vegetables  and  flowers.  They  had  besides,  fowls,  pigeons,  and 
rabbits  ;  and  these,  with  a  cat  and  a  dog",  generally  formed  the  little 
household  of  every  soldier, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  259 

STANCES, 

SUR  LES  BRUITS  DE  GUERRE  AVEC   I/AUTRICHE, 

Hois  taut  de  ibis  vaincus  !     O  Rois  dont  1'imprudence 

Menace  encore  votre  vainqueur, 
Fixez  en  ce  moment  vos  regards  sur  la  France, 

Et  perdez  tout  espoir  en  voyant  sa  afilendeur. 

Quel  orgueil  deplorable,  insenses  cue  vous  etes, 

Peutdonc  encore  vous  abuser  ? 
Tremblez,  si  votre  voix  invoque  les  tempetes 

La  foudre  va  partir  ;  mais  pour  vous  ecraser. 

Et  toi,  Napoleone,  s'il  faut  a  la  victoire 

Ramener  ce  peuple  guerrier, 
Vas,  TEurope  est  temoin  qu'au  laurier  de  la  gloire 

Ton  ccsur  tut  fircfere  le  modeste  clivier. 

Mais  du  soldat  Frangais  la  valeur  irritee 

T'appelle  a  de  nouveaux  exploits, 
Dis  un  mot,  un  seul  mot,  et  Vienne  efioiruantee 

Vas  revoir  nos  drapeaux — pour  la  derniere  foi&, 

STANZAS 

ON    THE    RUMOUR    OF    A    WAR    WITH    AUSTRIA, 

Kings,  who  so  often  vanquished,  vainly  dare 

Menace  the  victor  that  has  laid  you  low — 
Look  now  at  France — and  view  your  own  despair 

In  the  majestic  splendour  of  your  foe. 

What  miserable  pride,  ye  foolish  kings, 

Still  your  deluded  reason  thus  misleads  ? 
Provoke  the  storm — the  bolt  with  light'ning  wings 

Shall  fall — but  fall  on  your  devoted  heads. 

And  thou,  Napoleone,  if  thy  mighty  sword 
Shall  for  thy  country  conquer  new  renown  ; 

Go — Europe  shall  attest,  thy  heart  preferr'd 
The  modest  olive  to  the  laurel  crown. 

But  thee,  lov'd  chief,  to  new  achievements  bold 

The  arous'd  spirit  of  the  soldier  calls  ; 
Speak ! — and  Vienna  cowering,  shall  behold 

Our  banners  waving  o'er  her  prostrate  walls. 


260  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

I  received,  four  days  afterwards,  at  the  circle  of  Madame  Jo- 
seph Buonaparte,  with  all  other  visitors,  a  copy  of  these  stanzas  ; 
most  of  the  foreign  ambassadors  were  of  the  party,  and  had  also  a 
share  of  this  patriotic  donation.  Count  de  Cobentzel  had  pru- 
dently absented  himself  ;  otherwise  this  delenda  of  the  Austrian 
Carthage  would  have  been  officially  announced  to  him. 

Another  poetaster,  of  the  name  of  Brouet,  in  a  long,  dull,  dis- 
gusting poem,  after  comparing  Buonaparte  with  all  great  men 
of  antiquity,  and  firaving  that  he  surpasses  them  all ;  tells  his 
countrymen  that  their  Emperor  is  the  deputy -divinity  upon 
earth,  the  mirror  of  wisdom,  a  demi-god,  to  whom  future  ages 
will  erect  statues,  build  temples,  burn  incense,  fall  down  and 
adore  ;  a  proportionate  share  of  abuse  is,  of  course,  bestowed 
on  your  nation.  He  says, 

A  Londres  on  vit  briller  d'un  eclat  ephemere 
Le  front  tout  radieux  d'un  ministre  influent 
Mais  pour  faire  palir  1'etoile  d'Angleterre, 
Un  SOLEIL  tout  nouveau  parut  au  firmament  , 
Et  ce  soleil  du  peuple  franc, 
Admire  de  1'Europe  entiere^ 
Stir  la  terre  est  nomme  BUONAPARTE  LE  GRAND. 

For  this  delicate  compliment,  Brouet  was  made  deputy-post- 
master-general  in  Italy,  and  a  knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 
It  must  be  granted,  that  if  Buonaparte  is  fond  of  flattery,  he  does 
not  receive  it  gratis,  but  pays  for  it  like  a  real  Emperor. 

It  has  lately  become  the  etiquette,  not  only  in  our  court-cir- 
cle, and  official  assemblies,  but  even  in  fashionable  societies  of 
persons  who  are,  or  wish  to  become  Buonaparte's  public  func- 
tionaries, to  distribute,  and  have  read  and  applauded,  these  disin- 
terested effusions  of  our  poetical  geniuses.  This  fashion  occa- 
sioned lately,  a  curious  blunder  at  a  tea-party,  in  the  hotel  of  Ma- 
dame Talleyrand.  The  same  printer  who  had  been  engaged  by 
this  lady,  had  also  been  employed  by  Chenier,  or  some  other 
poet,  to  print  a  short  satire  against  some  of  our  literary  ladies,  in 
which  Madame  de  Genlis,  and  Madame  de  Stael,  who  has  just 
arrived  here  from  her  exile,  were,  with  others,  very  severely 
handled.  By  mistake,  a  bumjje  of  this  production  was  given  to 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  26<J 

the  porter  of  Madame  Talleyrand,  and  a  copy  was  handed  to 
each  visitor,  even  to  Madame  de  Genlis,  and  Madame  de  Stael, 
who  took  them  without  noticing  their  contents.  Picard,  after 
reading  an  act  of  a  new  play,  was  asked  by  the  lady  of  the  house 
to  read  this  poetic  worship  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  Af- 
ter the  two  first  lines  he  stopped  short,  looked  round  him  confu- 
sed, suspecting  a  trick  had  been  played  upon  him.  This  induced 
the  audience  to  read  what  had  been  given  them,  and  Madame 
Talleyrand  with  the  rest ;  who,  instead  of  permitting  Heard  to 
continue  with  another  act  of  his  play,  as  he  had  adroitly  began, 
made  the  most  awkward  apology  in  the  world,  and  by  it,  still  more 
exposed  the  ladies,  who  were  the  objects  of  the  satire  ;  which,  in 
an  hour  afterwards,  was  exchanged  for  the  verses  intended  for 
the  homage  of  the  Emperor,  and  the  cause  of  the  error  was 
cleared  up. 

I  have  read  somewhere  of  a  tyrant  of  antiquity,  who  forced  all 
his  subjects  to  furnish  one  room  of  their  houses  in  the  best  pos- 
sible manner,  according  to  their  circumstances,  and  to  have  it 
consecrated  for  the  reception  of  his  bust,  before  which,  under 
pain  of  death,  they  were  commanded  to  prostrate  themselves, 
morning,  noon,  and  night.  They  were  to  enter  this  room  bare- 
headed and  bare -footed,  to  remain  there  only  on  their  knees,  and 
to  leave  it  without  turning  their  back  towards  the  sacred  repre- 
sentative -of  their  Prince.  All  laughing,  sneezing,  coughing, 
speaking,  or  even  whispering,  were  capitally  prohibited  ;  but 
crying  was  not  only  permitted,  but  commanded,  when  his  Majes* 
ty  was  offended,  angry,  or  unwell.  Should  our  system  of  cring- 
ing continue  progressively  to  increase,  as  it  has  done  these  last 
three  years,  we,  too,  shall  very  soon  have  rooms  consecrated,  and 
an  idol  to  adore. 


LETTER  LVIIL 

Paris,  September,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

PORTUGAL  has  suffered  more  from  the  degraded  state  of 
Spain,  under  the  administration  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  than  we 
have. yet  gained  by  it  in  France.  Engaged  by  her,  in  17y35  in  a 


262  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 


war  against  its  inclination  and  interest,  it  was  not  only  deserted 
afterwards,  but  sacrificed.  Ikit  for  the  dictates  of  the  Court  of 
Madrid,  supported,  perhaps,  by  some  secret  influence  of  the 
Court  of  St.  James,  the  Court  of  Lisbon  \vould  have  preserved 
its  neutrality,  and,  though  not  a  well-wisher  to  the  French  Re- 
public, never  have  been  counted  among  her  avowed  enemies. 

In  the  peace  of  1795,  and  the  subsequent  treaty  of  1796,  which 
transformed  the  family  compact  of  the  French  and  Spanish  Bour- 
bons into  a  national  alliance  between  France  and  Spain,  there  was 
no  question  about  Portugal.  In  1797,  indeed,  our  government 
condescended  to  receive  a  Portuguese  plenipotentiary,  but  mere- 
ly for  the  purpose  of  plundering  his  country  of  some  millions  of 
money,  and  to  insult  it,  by  shutting  up  its  representative  as  a  state 
prisoner  in  the  Temple.  Of  this  violation  of  the  laws  of  civilized 
nations,  Spain  never  complained,  nor  had  Portugal  any  means  to 
avenge  it.  After  four  years  of  negotiation,  and  an  expenditure 
•of  thirty  millions,  the  imbecile  Spanish  premier  supported  de- 
mands made  by  our  government,  which,  if  assented  to,  would 
have  left  his  Most  Faithful  Majesty  without  any  territory  in 
Europe  and  without  any  place  of  refuge  in  America.  Circum- 
stances not  permitting  your  country  to  send  any  but  pecuniary 
succours,  Portugal  would  have  become  an  easy  prey  to  the  uni- 
ted Spanish  and  French  forces,  had  the  marauders  agreed  about 
the  partition  of  the  spoil.  Their  disunion,  the  consequence  of 
their  avidity,  saved  it  from  ruin,  but  not  from  pillage.  A  pro- 
vince was  ceded  to  Spain  ;  the  banks  and  the  navigation  of  a 
river  to  France ;  and  fifty  millions  to  the  private  purse  of  the  Buo- 
naparte family. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  such  renunciations,  and 
such  offerings,  would  have  satiated  ambition,  as  well  as  cupidity  \ 
but  though  the  Cabinet  of  Lisbon  was  in  peace  with  the  Cabinet 
of  St.  Cloud,  the  pretensions  and  encroachments  of  the  latter 
left  the  former  no  rest.  While  pocketing  tributes,  it  required 
commercial  monopolies,  and  when  its  commerce  was  favoured, 
it  demanded  sea-ports  to  ensure  the  security  of  its  trade.  Its  pre- 
tensions rose  in  proportion  to  the  condescensions  of  the  state  it  op- 
pressed. With  the  money  and  the  value  of  the  diamonds,  which 
Portugal  has  paid  in  loans,  in  contribute  ns,  in  requisitions,  in 
donations,  in  tributes,  and  in  presents,  it  might  have  supported 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  263 

during  ten  years,  an  army  of  one  hundred  thousand  men  ;  and 
could  it  then  have  been  worse  situated  than  it  has  been  since, 
and  is  still  at  this  moment  ? 

But  the  manner  of  extorting,  and  the  individuals  employed  to 
extort,  were  more  humiliating  to  its  dignity  and  independence, 
than  the  extortions  themselves  were  injurious  to  its  resources. 
The  first  revolutionary  ambassador  Buonaparte  sent  thither  evin- 
ced both  his  ingratitude  arid  ids  contempt. 

Few  of  our  many  upstart  generals  have  more  illiberal  senti- 
ments,  and  more  vulgar  and  insolent  manners  than  General 
Lasnes.  The  son  of  a  publican  and  a  smuggler,  he  was  a  smug- 
gler himself  in  his  youth,  and  afterwards  a  postilion,  a  dragoon, 
a  deserter,  a  coiner,  a  jacobin,  a  terrorist  ;  and  he  has,  with  the 
meanness  and  brutality  of  these  dirTerent  trades,  a  kind  of  na- 
tive impertinence  and  audacity  which  shocks  and  disgusts.    He 
seems  to  say  I  am  a  villain  ;    I  know  that  I  am  so  ;    and   I  am 
proud  of  being  so.  To  obtain  the  rank  I  possess,  I  1'ave  respect- 
ed no  human  laws,  and  I  bid  defiance  to  all  divine  vengeance.  I 
might  be  murdered  or  hanged,  but  it  is  impossible  to  degrade 
me.  On  a  gibbet,  or  in  the  palace  of  a  prince — seized  by  the  ex- 
ecutioner, or  dining  with  sovereigns,  I  am,  I  will,  and  I  must  al- 
ways remain  the  same.    Infamy  cannot  debase  me,  nor  is  it  in 
the  power  of  grandeur  to  exalt  me.    General,  ambassador,  field- 
marshal,  first  consul,  or  emperor,  Lasnes  will  always  be  the 
same  polluted  but  daring  individual  ;  a  stranger  to  remorse  and 
repentance,  as  well  as  to  honour  and  virtue.    Where  Buonaparte 
sends  a  bandit  of  such  a  stamp,  he  has  resolved  on  destruction. 
A   kind   of  temporary  disgrace  was  said  to  have  occasioned 
Lasnes' first  mission  to  Portugal.   When  commander  of  the  con- 
sular guard,  in  1802,  he  had  appropriated  to  himself  a  sum  of 
money  from  the  regimental  chest,  and,  as  a  punishment,  was 
exiled  as  an  ambassador^   as  he  said  himself.    His  resentment 
against  Buonaparte  he  took  care  to  pour  out  on  the   Regent  of 
Portugal,  without  inquiring  or  caring  about  the  etiquette  of  the 
Court  of  the  Thuillei  ies  with  him,  and  determined  to  fraternize 
.  with  a  foreign  and  legitimate,  sovereign,  as  he  had  done  with  his 
own  sans-culotte  friend  and  First  Consul  ;    and,  what  is  more 
surprising,  he  carried  his  point*    The  Prince   Regent  not  only 
admitted   him  to  the  royal  table,  but  stood  sponsor  to  his  child 


264  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

by  a  wife,  who  had  been  two  years  his  mistress,  before  he  Was 
divorced  from  his  first  spouse,  and  with  whom  the  Prince's  con- 
sort, a  Bourbon  Princess,  and  a  daughter  of  a  King,  was  also 
obliged  to  associate. 

Avaricious  as  well  as  unprincipled,  he  pursued,  as  an  ambas- 
sador, his  former  business  of  a  smuggler,  and  instead  of  being 
ashamed  of  a  discovery,  proclaimed  it  publicly,  deserted  his  post, 
was  not  reprimanded  in  France,  but  was,  without  apology,  re- 
ceived back  again  in  Portugal.  His  conduct  afterwards  could 
not  be  surprising.  He  only  insisted  that  some  faithful  and  able 
ministers  should  be  removed,  and  others  appointed  in  their  place, 
more  complaisant,  and  less  honest. 

New  plans  of  Buonaparte,  however,  delivered  Portugal  from 
this  plague  ;  but  what  did  it  obtain  in  'return  ?  Another  grenadier 
ambassador,  less  brutal,  but  more  cunning  ;  as  abandoned,  but 
more  dissimulating. 

General  Jimot  is  the  son  of  a  corn-chandler,  near  the  corn- 
market  of  this  capital,  and  was  a  shopman  to  his  father  in  1789. 
Having  committed  some  pilfering,  he  was  turned  out  of  the  pa* 
rental  dwelling,  and  therefore  lodged  himself  as  an  inmate  of  the 
Jacobin  Club.  In  1792,  he  entered  as  a  soldier  in  a  regiment  of 
the  army  marching  against  the  county  of  Nice  ;  and  in  1793, 
he  served  before  Toulon,  where  he  became  acquainted  with 
Buonaparte,  whom  he,  in  January,  1794,  assisted  in  dispatching 
'.he  unfortunate  Toulonese  ;  and  with  whom  also,  in  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year,  he  therefore  was  arrested  as  a  terrorist. 

In  1799,  when  commander  in  chief,  Buonaparte  made  Junot 
his  aid-de-camp  ;  and  in  that  capacity  he  accompanied  him,  in 
1798,  to  Egypt.  There,  as  well  as  in  Italy,  he  fought  bravely, 
but  had  no  particular  opportunity  of  distinguishing  himself.  He 
was  not  one  of  those  select  few,  whom  Napoleone  brought  witli 
him  to  Europe,  in  1799,  but  returned  first  to  France  in  1801, 
when  he  was  nominated  a  general  of  division,  and  commander  oi 
this  capital ;  a  place  he  resigned  last  year  to  General  Murat. 

His  despotic  and  cruel  behaviour,  while  commander  of  Paris, 
made  him  not  much  regretted.  Fouche  lost  in  him,  indeed,  ar. 
able  support,  but  none  of  us  here  ever  experienced  from  him  jus- 
tice, much  less  protection.  As  with  all  other  of  our  modem 
public  funclionanes,  without  raoney  nothing  was  obtained  fron? 


COURT  *OI'  ST.  CLOUD.  265 

him.    It  required  as  much  for  not  doing  any  harm,  as  if.  in  re- 
nouncing his  usual  vexatious  oppressions,  he  had  conferred  bene- 
fits.  He  was  much  suspected  of  being,  with  Fouche,  the  patron 
of  a  gang  of  street-robbers  and  house-breakers,  who,  in  the  winter 
of  1803,  infested  this  capital,  and  who,  when  finally  discovered, 
were  screened  from  justice,  and  suffered  to  escape  punishment. 
I  will  tell  you  what  I  personally  have  seen  of  him.    Happen- 
ing one  evening  to  enter  the  rooms  at  Frescati,  where  the  gam- 
bling tables  are  kept,  I  observed  him  undressed,  out  of  regimen- 
tals, in   company  with  a   young  man,   who  afterwards  avowed 
himself  an  aid-de-camp  of  this  general,  and  who  was  playing 
with  rouleaux  of  Louis  d'ors,  supposed  to  contain  fity  each,  at 
Rouge  ct  Noir.   As  long  as  he  lost  any,  which  he  did  several,  he 
took  up  the  rouleaux  on  the  table,   and  gave  another  from  his 
pocket.    At  last  he  won,  when  he   asked  the  bankers  to  look  at 
their  loss,  and  count  the  money  in  his  rouleaux  before  they  paid 
him.    On  opening  it,  they  found  it  contained  one  hundred  bank 
notes,  of  one  hundred  thousand  livres  each,  (4500/.)  folded  in  a 
manner  to  resemble  the  form  and   size  of  Louis  d'ors.     The 
bankers  refused  to  pay,  and  applied  to  the  company,  whether 
they  were  not  right  to  do  so,  after  so  many  rouleaux  had  been 
changed  by  the  person  who  now  required   such  an  unusual  sum 
in  such  an  unusual  manner.    Before  any  answer  could  be  given, 
Junot  interfered,  asking  the  bankers  whether  they  knew  who  he 
was.    Upon  their  answering  in  the  negative,  he  said,  "  I  am  Ge- 
neral Junot,  the  commander  of  Pai  is ;   and  this  officer  who  has 
won  the  money  is  my  aid-de-camp,  and  I  insist  upon  your  pay- 
ing him  this  instant,  if  you  do  not  wish  to  have  your  bank  confis- 
cated, and  your  persons  arrested."    They  refused  to  part  with 
money  which  they  protested  was  not  their  own  ;  and  most  of  the 
individuals  present  joined  them  in  their  resistance.  "You  are  al- 
together a  set  of  scoundrels  and  sharpers,"  interrupted  Junot, 
"  your  business  shall  soon  be  done/'    So  saying,  he  seized  all  the 
money  on  the  table  ;  and  a  kind  of  boxing  match  ensued  between 
him  and  the  bankers,  in  which  he,  being  a  tall  and  strong  man, 
got  the  better  of  them.    The  tumult,  however,  brought  in  the 
guard,  whom  he  ordered,  as  their  chief,  to  carry  to  prison  six- 
teen persons  lie  pointed  cut ;   fortunately  I  was  not  of  the  num- 
ber ;  I  say  fortunately,  for  I  heard  that  most  of  them  remained 

A  a 


S66  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

imprisoned  six  months,  before  this  delicate  affair  was  cleared  up 
and  settled.  In  the  mean  time  Junot  not  only  pocketed  all  the  mo- 
ney he  pretended  was  due  to  his  aid-de-camp,  but  the  whole  sum 
contained  in  the  bunk,  which  was  double  the  amount.    It  was  be- 
lieved, by  every  one  present,  that  this  was  an  affair  arranged  be- 
tween him  and  his  akl-de-camp  beforehand,  to  pillage  the  bank. 
What  a  commander,  what  a  general,  and  what  an  ambassador  I 
Fitte,  the  secretary  of  our  embassy  to  Portugal,  was  formerly 
an  abbe,  and  must  be  well  remembered  in  your  country,  where 
he  passed  some  years  as  an  emigrant,  but  was,  in  fact,  a  spy  ot 
Tulloyrand.    I  am  told,  thut  by  his  intrigues,  he  even  succeeded 
to  swindle  your  ministers  out  of  a  sum  of  money,  by  some  plau- 
sible schemes  he  proposed  to  them.    He  is,  as  well  as  all  other 
apostate  priests,  a  very  dangerous  man,  and  an  immoral  and  un- 
principled wretch.    During  the  time  of  Robespierre,  he  is  said 
to  have  caused  the  murder  of  his  elder  brother  and  younger  sis- 
ter ;    the  former  he   denounced,  to  appropriate  to    himself  his 
wealth  ;  and  the  K-.tter  he  accused  of  fanaticism,  because  she  re- 
fused to  cohabit  with  him.     He  daily  boasts  of  the  great  protec- 
tion and  great  friendship  of  Talleyrand.  Qualis  rex,  tails,  grex. 


LETTER  LIX. 

Paris,  September,  1805. 

MY  LOUD, 

IN  some  of  the  ancient  republics,  all  citizens,  who,  in  time  of 
danger  and  trouble,  remained  neutral,  were  punished  as  traitors, 
or  treated  as  enemies.  When,  by  our  Revolution,  civilized  socie- 
ty and  the  European  commonwealth  were  menaced  with  a  total 
overthrow,  had  each  member  of  it  been  considered  in  the  same 
light,  and  subjected  to  the  same  laws,  some  individual  states 
might  perhaps  have  been  less  wealthy^  but  the  whole  community 
would  have  been  more  happy  and  more  tranquil,  which  would 
have  been  much  better.  It  was  a  great  error  in  the  powerful 
league  of  1793,  to  admit  any  neutrality  at  all ;  every  government 
that  did  not  combat  rebellion  should  have  been  considered  and 
treated  as  its  ally.  The  man  who  continues  neutral,  though  only 
fc  passenger,  when  hands  are  wanted  to  preserve  the  vessel  from 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  26? 

.Hiking,  deserves  lorbe  thrown  overboard,  to  be  swallowed  up  by 
the  waves,  and  to  perish  the  first.    Had  all  other  nations  been 
united  and  unanimous,  during  1793  and  1794,  against  the  mon- 
ster Jacobinism,  we  should  not  have  heard  of  either  jacobin  Di- 
rectors, jacobin  Consuls,  or  a  jacobin  Emperor.     But  then,  from 
a  petty  regard  to  a  temporary   profit,  they  entered  into  a  truce 
with  a  revolutionary  volcano,  which,  sooner  or  later,  will  con- 
sume them  all  ;  for  I  am  afraid  that  it  is  now  too  late  for  all  hu- 
man power,  with  all  human  means,  to  preserve  any  state,  any 
government,  or  any  people,  from  suffering  by  the  threatening- 
conflagration.   Switzerland,  Venice,  Geneva,  Genoa,  and  Tusca- 
ny, have  already  gathered  the  poisoned  fruits  of  their  neutrality. 
Let  but  Buonaparte    establish  himself  undisturbed  in  Hanover 
some  years  longer,  and  you  will  see  the  neutral   Hcinse  Towns, 
neutral  Prussia,  and  neutral  Denmark,  visited  with  ail  the  evils  of 
invasion,  pillage,  and  destruction,   and  the  independence  of  the 
nations  in  the  north  will  be  buried  in  the  rubbish  of  the  liberties 
of  the  people  of  the  south  of  Europe. 

These  ideas  have  frequently  occurred  to  me,  on  hearing  our 
agents  pronounce,  and  their  dupes  repeat,  'Oh  1  the  wise  govern- 
ment of  Denmark  !  Oh  what  a  wise  statesman  the  Danish  minis- 
ter, Count  Bernstorf  is  !'  I  do  not  deny  iimi  tiic  mic  Cuuni  Dci'-ii- 
storf  was  a  great  politician  ;  but  I  assert  also  that  his  was  a  great- 
ness more  calculated  for  regular  times  than  for  periods  of  unu- 
sual political  convulsion  ;  like  your  Pitt,  the  Russian  Woronzow, 
and  the  Austrian  Colloredo,  he  was  too  honest  to  judge  soundlyy 
and  to  act  rightly,  according  to  the  present  situation  of  affairs ; 
he  adhered  too  much  to  the  old  routine,  and  did  not  perceive 
the  immense  difference  between  the  government  of  a  revolution- 
ary ruler  and  the  government  of  a  Louis  XIII.  or  a  Louis 
XIV".  I  am  certain,  had  he  still  been  alive,  he  would  have  re- 
pented of  his  errors,  and  tried  to  have  repaired  them. 

His  son,  the  present  Danish  minister,  follows  his  father's  plans, 
and  adheres,  in  1805,  to  a  system  laid  down  by  him  in  1795  ; 
while  the  alterations  that  have  occurred  within  these  ten  years 
have  more  affected  the  real  and  relative  power  and  weakness  of 
states,  than  all  the  revolutions  which  have  been  produced  by  the 
insurrections,  wars,  and  pacifications  of  the  two  preceding  centu- 
ries. He  has  even  gone  farther,  in  some  parts  of  his  ad  minis  tnt- 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF 


THE 


u 

forgotten  the  obligation.  o  S  aWn  1  77lUl  Pn'Ssia  ;  Md 
Cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg  and  ^  ?  C°Penhagen  to  the 
House  of  Brandenburg,,  T  ,,'t  on  f  Wterested  "olicy  of  the 
-ays  been  a  generously  of  Denm±  77*  RuMia  h« 


o 
">f  »ani,h  dominions,  since 

Its  distance  and 


""**""« 


of 


it  afibrds  proten 
the  ambition  of  Prus-i, 


"valr>'  of  s«'<--den 


"e  to 
die- 
Count  de  Rc- 

f     ""'  """^  •*«««««, 
r     •'"  *****"  wi"  not  «' 
""  by  thc  dea*  of  its 

with 


in  the 


seldomer  the  acH  ce  o/h 
of  llis  own  n,ind.   Coun 
w,  and  Count  Ben.  of 
««t  I  fear  that  their  u,  ^ 
"P'he  vacancy   left  in       '  U 
^te  prime  minister     I  have 
them  all  three,  but  I  draw 
a«to.inUt«tion,  not  from 
^rnstorf  held  the  minis.e 
Monueur  would  never  have  dfa 
nor  would,  in  ,805,  intl,gUers 
neutrality,  after  witness^  repeMed  v 
uons,  no,  on  the  remote  bLkf  o)     e 
frontiers,  on  the  Danish  territory  on 

It  certainly  wa,  no 
curgovenment  It 
gen  ;  a  man  who  owed          e 

Conde  branch  of  the  Bourbons,,     wl        , 

and  sacriJegiously  read  the  sJnc  !"  "f  d 

family,  on  his  good  and  legidml  e  sine  I         v,  "  Chic''  °f  tllal 

ther  be  cal.ed  dignity  nor  prudence    f,',     r't        '"     ft  °art  "d- 

to  suffer  this  regicide-  to  serve  as     p    „   ^t™  °f  Denffl"k' 

:^ 


preach«» 

*ll"JtW  °f  » 
,'        °"  "le  Uanis1' 
kS  °f  the  Ell)<=. 
Da"ish  Majesty,  ,;,en 


- 
Ulformation 


the 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  269 

tvines,  and  an  official  protector  of  all  proselytes  and  sectaries  of 
this  anti-social  faith. 

Before  the  revolution  a  secretary  to  the  Prince  01  Conde,  C 
veile  was  trusted  and  rewarded  by  his  Serene  Highness,  and 
return  betrayed  his  confidence  ;    and  repaid  benefactions  and  ge- 
nerosity with  calumny  and  persecution,  when  his  patron  wasot 
ged  to  seek  safety  in  emigration,  against  the  assassins  o 
cessful  rebellion.     When  the  national  seals  were  put 
tates  of  the  Prince,  he  appropriated  to  himself,  not  only  the 
whole  of  his  Highness's  library,  but   a  part  ofrhis  plate.     Lve 
the  wardrobe  and  the  cellar,  were  laid  under  contributions  by  tl 
domestic  marauder. 

With  natural    genius,  and   acquired    experience,  GrouvelJ 
unites  impudence  and  immorality  ;    and  those  on  whom  1 
for  his  prey,  are,  therefore,  easily  duped,  and  irremediably  u 
He  has  furnished  disciples  to   all  factions,  and  to  all  sects^; 
assassins  to   the    revolutionary    tribunals,  as  well    as    vicl 
for  the  revolutionary  guillotine  ;     sans-culottes  to  Robespierr 
Septembers  to  Marat,  re/ntbKcana  to  the  Directory  ;    spies 
Talleyrand  ;    and  slaves  to  Buonaparte,  who,  in  1800,  nominate, 
him  a  tribune,  but  in   1804,  disgraced   him,  because  he  wisae 
that  the  Duke    d'Enghien  had  rather  been  secretly  poisoned 
Baden,   than  publicly   condemned,  and  privately    executed   i 

^ur  present  minister  at  the  Court  of  Copenhagen,  Dagues- 
*u,  has  no  virtues  to  boast  of;  but  also,  no  crimes  to  blush  fa 
/With  inferior  capacity,  he  is  only  considered  by  Talleyrand^  as 
an  inferior  intriguer,  employed  in  a  country  ruled  by  an  ntei 
policy,  neither  feared  nor   esteemed  by  our  government.     Hi 
-  secretary,  Desau-iers  the  elder,  is  our  real  and  confidential  1 
brand  in  the  north,  commissioned  to  keep  burning  those  mate- 
rials  of  combustion,  which  Grouvelle  and  others  of  our  incendii 
ries  have  lighted  and  illuminated  in  Holstein,  Denmark,  Swe< 
and  Norway. 


270  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  LX. 

Paris,  September,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  insatiable  avarice  of  all  the  members  of  the  Buona- 
parte family,  has  already  and  frequently  been  mentioned  ;  some 
of  our  philosophers,  however,  pretend,  that  ambition  and  vanity 
exclude  from  the  mind  of  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  the  passion  of 
covetousness  ;  that  he  pillages  only  to  get  money  to  pay  his  mili- 
tary plunderers,  and  hoards  treasures  only  to  purchase  slaves, 
or  to  recompense  the  associates  and  instruments  of  his  autho- 
rity. 

Whether  their  assertions  be  just  or  not,  I  will  not  take  upon 
myself  to  decide  ;  but,  to  judge  from  the  Imperial  and  Royal 
palaces,  from  the  great  augmentation  of  the  Imperial  and  Royal 
domains  ;  from  the  immense  and  valuable  quantity  of  diamonds, 
jewels,  pictures,  statues,  libraries,  museums,  &c.  disinterested- 
ness and  self-denial,  are  certainly  not  among  Napoleone's  vir- 
tues. 

In  France,  he  not  only  disposes  of  all  the  former  palaces  and 
extensive  demesnes  of  our  King,  but  has  greatly  increasedlhem, 
by  national  property  and  by  lands  and  estates  bought  by  the  Im- 
pel ial  treasury,  or  confiscated  by  Imperial  decrees.  In  Italy, 
he  has,  by  an  official  act,  declared  to  be  the  property  of  his 
crown,  First,  the  Royal  palace  at  Milan,  and  a  Royal  villa, 
which  he  now  calls  villa  Buonaparte  ;  Second,  the  palace  of 
Monza  and  its  dependencies  ;  Third,  the  palace  of  Mantua,  the 
palace  of  The,  and  the  ci-devant  ducal  palace  of  Modena  ; 
Fourth,  a  palace  situated  in  the  vicinity  of  Brescia,  and  another 
palace  in  the  vicinity  of  Bologna  ;  Fifth  ;  the  ci-devant  ducal 
palaces  of  Parma  and  Placenza  ;  Sixth,  the  beautiful  forest  of 
Tesin.  Ten  millions  were,  besides,  ordered  to  be  drawn  out  of 
the  Royal  treasury  at  Milan,  to  purchase  lands  for  the  formation 
of  a  park,  pleasure  grounds,  Sec. 

To  these  are  added,  all  the  Royal  palaces  and  domains  of  the 
former  Kings  of  Sardinia,  of  the  Dukes  of  Brabant,  of  the  Counts 
of  Flanders,  of  the  German  Electors,  Princes,  Dukes,  Counts, 
Barons,  Sec.  who,  before  the  last  war,  were  sovereigns  on  the 
r.^ht  bank  of  the  Rhine.  I  have  seen  a  list,  according  to  which* 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  271 

Ij  rhe  number  of  palaces  and  chateaux  appertaining  to  Napoleone, 
fl  as  Lmperor  and  King,  are  stated  to  be  seventy-bine  ;  so  that  he 
I  may  change  bis  habitation  six  times  in  the  month,  \vithout  occu- 
pying during  the  same  year  the  same  palace,  and  nevertheless  al- 
j  Ways  tilce/i  at  home. 

In  this  number  are  not  included  the  private  chateaux  and  es- 
tates  of  the  Empress,  or  those  of  the  Princes  and  Princesses 
Buonaparte.  Madame  Napoleone  has  purchased,  since  her  hus- 
band's consulate,  in  her  own  name,  or  in  the  name  of  her  chil- 
dren, nine  estates  with  their  chateaux,  four  national  forests,  and 
six  hotels  at  Paris.  Joseph  Buonaparte  possesses  four  estates 
and  chateaux  in  France,  three  hotels  at  Paris  and  at  Brussels, 
three  chateaux  and  estates  in  Italy,  and  one  hotel  at  Milan,  and 
another  at  Turin.  Lucien  Buonaparte  has  now  remaining  only 
one  hotel  at  Paris,  another  at  Rome,  and  a  third  at  Chamberry. 
He  has  one  estate  in  Burgundy,  two  in  Languedoc,  and  one  in 
the  vicinity  of  this  capital.  At  Bologna,  Ferrara,  Florence,  and 
Rome,  he  has  Ids  own  hotels,  and  in  the  Papal  States,  he  has  ob- 
tained, in  exchange  for  property  in  France,  three  chateaux  with 
their  clep-.  ndendes.  Louis  Buonaparte  has  three  hotels  at  Paris, 
one  at  Cologne,  one  at  Strasburgb,  am!  one  at  Lyons,  lie  has 
two  estates  in  Flanders,  three  in  Burgundy,  one  in  tranche 
Comte,  and  another  in  Aisice.  Fit  has  also  a  chateau  four 
leagues  from  this  city.  At  Genoa  he  has  a  beautiful  i  otel,  and 
upon  the  Genoese  territory,  a  large  estate.  He  has  bought  three 
plantations  at  Martinico,  and  two  at  Guadeloupe.  To  Jerome 
Buonaparte  has  hitherto  been  presented  only  an  estate  in  Bra- 
bant, and  a  hotel  in  this  capital.  Some  of  the  former  domains 
of  the  house  of  Orange,  in  the  Batavian  Republic,  have  bten  pur- 
chased by  the  agents  of  our  government,  and  are  said  to  be  in- 
tended for  him. 

But,  while  Napoleone  Buonaparte  has  thus  heaped  wealth  on 
his  wife  and  brothers,  his  mother  and  sisters  have  not  been 
neglected  or  left  unprovided  for.  Madame  Buonaparte,  his  mo- 
ther, has  one  hotel  at  Paris,  one  at  Turin,  one  at  Milan,  and  one 
at  Rome.  Her  estates  in  France  are  four,  and  in  Italy  two.— 
Madame  Bachiocchi,  Princess  of  Piombino  and  Lucca,  possesses 
two  hotels  in  this  capital,  and  one  palace  at  Piombino,  and  ano- 
ther at  Lucca.  Of  her  estates  in  France,  she  has  only  retained 


£72  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

two, but  she  has  three  in  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  and  four  in  her 
husband's  and  her  own  dominions.  The  Princess  Santa  Cruce 
possesses  one  hotel  at  Rome,  and  four  chateaux  in  the  papal  terri- 
tory. At  Milan,  she  has,  as  well  as  at  Turin  and  at  Paris,  ho- 
tels given  her  by  her  Imperial  brother,  together  with  two  estates 
in  France,  one  in  Piedmont,  and  two  in  Lombardy.  The  Prin- 
cess Murat  is  mistress  of  two  hotels  here,  one  at  Brussels,  one 
at  Tours,  and  one  at  Bourdeaux,  together  with  three  estates  on 
this,  and  five  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps.  The  Princess  Bor- 
ghese  has  purchased  three  plantations  at  Guadaloupe,  and  two 
at  Martinico,  with  a  part  of  the  treasures  left  her  by  her  first 
husband,  Le  Clerc.  With  her  present  husband,  she  received 
two  palaces  at  Rome,  and  three  estates  on  the  Roman  territory  ; 
and  her  Imperial  brother  has  presented  her  with  one  hotel  at 
Paris,  one  at  Cologne,  one  at  Turin,  and  one  at  Genoa,  together 
with  three  estates  in  France,  and  five  in  Italy.  ^For  his  mother, 
and  for  each  of  his  sisters,  Nupoleone  has  also  purchased  estates, 
or  lands  to  form  estates,  in  their  native  Island  of  Corsica. 

The  other  near  or  distant  relatives  of  the  Emperor  and  King, 
have  alto  experienced  las  bounty.  Cardinal  Fesch  has  his  hotels 
at  Paris,  Milan,  Lyons,  Turin  and  Rome  ;  with  estates  both  in 
France  and  Italy,  Seventeen,  either  first,  second,  or  third  cou- 
sins, by  his  father's  or  mother's  si.le,  have  all  obtained  estdtes, 
either  in  the  French  empire,  or  in  thj  kingdom  of  Italy,  as  well  as 
all  brothers,  sisters*  or  cousins  of  his  own  wife,  and  the  wives  of 
his  brothers,  or  of  the  husbands  of  his  sisters.  Their  exact  num- 
ber cannot  be  well  known,  but  a  gentleman  who  has  lor.sr  been 
collecting  materials  for  some  future  history  of  the  house  of  Buo- 
naparte, and  of  the  French  empire,  has  already  shown  me  sixty- 
six  names  of  individuals  of  that  description,  and  of  both  sexes, 
who,  all,  thanks  to  the  Imperial  liberality,  have  suddenly  and  un- 
expectedly, become  people  of  property. 

When  you  consider  that  all  these  immense  riches  have  been 
seized  and  distributed  within  the  short  period  of  five  years,  it  is 
not  hazardous  to  s;y,  that  in  the  annah  of  Europe,  another  such 
revolution  in  property,  as  weH  as  in  power,  is  not  to  be  found. — . 
The  wealth  of  the  families  of  all  other  sovereigns,  taken  toge- 
ther, does  not  amount  to  half  the  value  of  what  the  Buonapartes 
have  acquired  and  possess. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  273 

Your*  country,  more  than  any  other  upon  earth,  has  to  be 
alarmed  at  this  revolution  of  property.  Richer  than  any  other 
nation,  you  have  more  to  apprehend  ;  besides,  it  threatens  you 
more,  both  as  our  frequent  enemies,  and  as  our  national  rivals  ; 
as  a  barrier  against  our  plans  of  universal  dominion,  ?nd  as  our 
superiors  in  pecuniary  resources.  May  we  never  live  to  see  the 
clay,  when  the  mandates  of  Buonaparte  or  Talleyrand,  are  honour- 
ed at  London,  as  at  Amsterdam,  Madrid,  Milan  and  Rome.  The 
misery  of  ages  to  come,  will  then  be  certain,  and  posterity  will  re- 
gard,as  comparative  happiness,  the  sufferings  of  their  forefathers. 
It  is  not  probable,  that  those  who  have  so  successfully  pillaged 
all  surrounding  states,  will  rest  contented,  until  you  are  involved 
in  the  same  ruin.  Union  among  yourselves,  can  only  preserve 
you  from  perishing  in  the  universal  wreck  ;  by  this  you  will  at 
least  gain  time,  and  may  hope  to  profit  by  probable  changes  and 
unexpected  accidents. 


LETTER  LXI. 

Paris)  September,  1805. 

MY  LORD, 

THE  counsellor  of  state,  and  intendant  of  the  Imperial  civil 
list,  Daru,  paid  for  the  place  of  a  commissary-general  of  our  ar- 
my in  Germany,  the  immense  sum  of  six  millions  of  livres, 
(250,000/.)  which  was  divided  between  Madame  Buonaparte  the 
mother,  Madame  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  Princess  Louis  Buona- 
parte, Princess  Murat,  and  the  Princess  of  Borghese.  By  this 
you  may  conclude  in  what  manner  we  intend  to  treat  the  wretch- 
ed inhabitants  of  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine.  This  Daru  is  too 
good  a  calculator,  and  too  fond  of  money,  to  throw  away  his  ex- 
penses ;  he  is  master  of  a  great  fortune,  made  entirely  by  his 
arithmetical  talents,  which  have  enabled  him  for  years  to  break 
all  the  principal  gambling  banks  on  the  continent,  where  he  has 
travelled  for  no  other  purpose.  On  his  return  here  he  became 
the  terror  of  all  our  gamesters,  who  offered  him  an  annuity  of 
one  hundred  tliousand  livres,  4000/.  not  to  play  ;  but  as  this  sum 
would  have  been  deducted  from  what  is  weekly  paid  to  P'ouche, 
the  minister  sent  him  an  order  not  to  approach  a  gambling  tablc4 


j?'4  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

under  pain  of  being  transported  to  Cayenne.  He  obeyed,  but 
the  bunkers  soon  experienced  that  he  had  deputies,  and  for  fear 
that,  even  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  he  might  forward 
his  calculations  hither,  Fouche  recommended  him,  for  a  smalt 
douceur,  to  the  office  of  intendarit  of  Buonaparte's  civil  list,  upon 
condition  of  never,  directly  or  indirectly,  injuring  our  gambling 
banks.  He  has  kept  his  promise  with  regard  to  France^  but 
made,  last  Spring,  a  gambling  tour  in  Italy  and  Germany  ;  whichj. 
he  avows,  produced  him  nine  millions  of  livres,  (375,000/.)  He 
always  punts,  but  never  keeps  a  bank.  He  begins  to  be  so  well 
known  in  many  parts  of  the  continent  that  the  instant  he  arrives 
all  banks  are  shut  up,  and  remain  so  until  his  departure.  This 
was  the  case  at  Florence  last  April.  He  travels  always  in  style, 
accompanied  by  two  mistresses,  and  four  servants.  He  is  a  Che- 
va^iur  ol  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

He  will,  however,  have  some  difficulty  to  make  a  great  profit 
by  his  calculations  in  Germany,  as  many  of  the  generals  are  bet- 
ter acquainted  tiian  he  with  the  country,  where  their  extortions 
and  dhupuiations  have  been  felt  and  lamented  for  these  ten  years 
past.  Augereau,  Bernadotte,  Ney,  Van  Damme,  and  other  ( 
our  military  banditti,  have  long  been  the  terror  of  the  Germans, 
and  tae  reproach  of  France. 

In  a  former  letter,  I  have  introduced  to  you  our  Field-marshal 
Bernadotte,  of  whom  Augereau  may  justly  be  called  an  elder  re- 
volutionary brother,  like  him  a  Parisian  by  birth,  and  like  him 
serving  as  a  common  soldier  before  the  revolution  ;  but  he  has 
this  merit  above  Bernadotte,  that  he  began  his  political  career  as 
a  police  spy,  and  finished  his  first  military  engagement  by  desertion 
into  foreign  countries  ;  in  most  of  which,  alter  again  enlisting  and 
again  deserting,  he  was  also  again  taken  and  again  flogged.  Italy 
has  indeed,  since  he  has  been  made  a  general,  been  more  the 
scene  of  his  devastations  than  Germany.  Lombardy  and  Venice 
will  not  soon  forget  the  thousands  he  butchered,  and  the  mil- 
lions he  plundered  ;  that  with  hands  reeking  with  blood,  and 
stained  with  human  gore,  he  seized  the  trinkets  which  devotion 
had  given  to  sanctity,  to  ornament  the  fingers  of  an  assassin,  or 
decorate  the  bosom  of  a  harlot.  The  outrages  he  committed 
during  1796  and  1797,  in  Italy  are  too  numerous  to  find  place  in 
any  letter,  even  were  they  not  disgusting  to  relate,  and  too  eix1"- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOI^D.  27.> 

•mous  antf  too  improbable  to  be  believed.  He  frequently  trans- 
formed the  temples  of  the  divinity  into  brothels  for  prostitution; 
and  virgins  who  had  consecrated  themselves  to  remain  the  un- 
polluted servants  of  God,  he  bayoneted  into  dens  of  impurity,  in- 
famy and  profligacy ;  and  in  these  abominations  he  prided  him- 
self. In  August,  1797,  on  his  way  to  Parts,  to  take  command  of 
the  sbirri,  who,  on  the  4th  of  the  following  September,  hunted 
away  or  imprisoned  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  the  Le- 
gislative Body,  he  paid  a  prostitute  with  whom  he  had  passed  the 
night,  at  Pavia,  with  a  draft  for  fifty  Louis  d'ors,  on  the  munici- 
pality of  that  town,  who  dared  not  dishonour  it  ;  but  they  kept 
the  draft,  and  in  1799,  handed  it  over  to  General  Melas,  who  sent 
it  to  Vienna,  where  I  saw  the  very  original. 

The  general  and  grand  officer  of  Buonaparte's  Legion  of  Ho- 
nour, Van  Damme,  is  another  of  our  military  heroes  of  the  same 
stamp.  A  barber,  and  son  of  a  Flemish  barber,  he  enlisted  as 
a  soldier,  robbed,  and  was  condemned  to  be  hanged.  The  human- 
ity of  the  judge  preserved  him  from  the  gallows  ;  but  he  was 
burnt  on  the  shoulders,  flogged  by  the  public  executioner, 
and  doomed  to  serve  as  a  galley-slave  for  life.  The  revolution 
broke  his  fetters,  made  him  a  jacobin,  a  patriot,  and  a  general  ; 
but  the  first  use  he  made  of  his  good  fortune  was  to  cause  the 
judge,  his  benefactor,  to  be  guillotined,  and  to  appropriate  to 
himself  the  estate  of  the  family.  He  was  cashiered  by  Tichegru, 
and  dishonoured  by  Moreau,  for  his  ferocity  and  plunder  in  Hol- 
land and  Germany  ;  but  Buonaparte  restored  him  to  rank  and 
confidence  ;  and,  by  a  douceur  of  twelve  hundred  thousand  li- 
vres,  (50,000/.)  properly  applied  and  divided  between  some  of 
the  members  of  the  Buonaparte  family,  he  procured  the  place  of 
a  governor  at  Lille,  and  a  commander  in  chief  of  the  ci-devant 
Flanders.  In  landed  property,  in  jewels,  in  sums  in  the  funds, 
and  in  ready-money,  (he  always  keeps  from  prudence,  six  hun-J 
dred  thousand  livres,  25,000/.  in  gold)  Ins  riches  amount  to  eight 
millions  of  livres.  (335,000/.)  For  a  ci-devant  sans-culotte  bar- 
ber and  galley-slave,  you  must  grant  this  is  a  very  modest 
sum. 


276  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  LXII. 

Paris,  September,  1805. 
MV  LORD, 

YOU  must  often  have  been  surprised  at  the  immense  wealth 
which,  from  the  best,  and  often  authentic  information,  I  have  in- 
formed you  our  generals  and  public  functionaries  have  extorted 
and  possess  ;    but  the   catalogue   of  private  rapine,   committed 
without  authority,  by  our  soldiers,  officers,  commissaries  and  ge- 
nerals, is  likewise  immense,  and  surpassing  often  the  exactions 
of  a  legal  kind,  that  is  to  say,  those  authorised  by  our  govern- 
ment itself,  or  by  its  civil  and  military  representatives.     It  com- 
prehends the  innumerable  requisitions  demanded  and  enforced, 
whether  as  loans,  or  in  provisions,  or  merchandise,  or  in  money, 
as  an  equivalent  for  both  ;   the  levies  of  men,  of  horses,  of  oxen 
and  carriages,  corvees  of  all  kinds  ;  the  emptying  of  magazines 
for  the  service  of  our  armies  ;    in  short,  whatever  was  required 
for  the  maintenance,  a  portion  of  the  pay,  and  divers  wants  of 
those   armies,  from    tlie  time  they  had  posted  themselves  in 
Brab'int,  Holland,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  on  either  bank  of  the 
Rhine  ;   add  to  this,  the  pillage  of  public  or  private  warehouses, 
granaries,  and  magazines,  whether  belonging  to  individuals,  to 
the  state,  to  societies,  to  towns,  to  hospitals,  and  even  to  orphan- 
houses. 

But  these  and  other  sort  of  requisitions,  under  the  appellation 
of  subsistence  necessary  for  the  armies,  and  for  what  was  want- 
ed for  accoutring,  quartering,  or  removing  them,  included  also 
an  infinite  consumption  for  pleasures,  luxuries,  whims,  and  de- 
baucheries of  our  civil  or  military  commanders.  Most  of  those 
articles  were  delivered  in  kind,  and  what  were  not  used  were  set 
up  to  auction,  converted  into  ready  money,  and  divided  among 
the  plunderers. 

In  1797,  General  Ney  had  the  command  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
free  and  Imperial  city  of  Wetzlar.  He  there  put  in  requisition,  all 
private  stores  of  cloths  ;  and,  after  disposing  of  them  by  a  public- 
sale,  retook  them  upon  another  requisition,  from  the  purchasers, 
and  sold  them  a  second  time.  Lc  ;«  'inc-n  underwent  the 

same  operation.     Volumes  might  he   filled  with  similar  exam- 
ples, all  of  publig  nrrton 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOCJD.  27T 

This  General  Ney,  who  is  now  one  of  the  principal  com- 
manders under  Buonaparte  in  Germany,  was  a  bankrupt  tobac- 
conist at  Strasburgh  in  1790,  and  is  the  son  of  an  old  clothesman 
of  Sarre  Louis,  where  he  was  born  in  1765.  Having  entered  as 
a  common  soldier  in  the  regiment  of  Alsace,  to  escape  the  pursuit 
of  his  creditors ,  he  was  there  picked  up  by  some  jacobin  emis- 
saries, whom  he  assisted  to  seduce  the  men  into  an  insurrection, 
which  obliged  most  of  the  officers  to  emigrate.  From  that  pe- 
riod he  began  to  distinguish  himself  as  an  orator  of  the  jacobin 
clubs,  and  was,  therefore,  by  his  associates,  promoted  by  one  step 
to  an  adjutant-general.  Brave  and  enterprising,  ambitious  for  ad- 
vancement, and  greedy  alter  riches,  he  seized  every  opportunity 
to  distinguish  and  enrich  himself;  and,  as  fortune  supported  his 
endeavours,  he  was  in  a  short  time  made  a  general  of  division, 
and  acquired  a  property  of  several  millions.  This  is  his  first  cam- 
paign under  Buonaparte,  having  previously  served  only  under 
Pichegru,  Moreau,  and  Lecourbe. 

He,  with  General  Riclifpaiise,  was  one  of  the  first  generals 
supposed  to  be  attached  to  tluir  former  chief,  General  Moreau, 
whom  Buonaparte  seduced  into  his  interest.  In  the  autumn  of 
1802,  when  the  Helvetian  Republic  attempted  to  recover  then- 
lost  independence,  Ney  was  appointed  commander  in  chief  of  the 
French  army  in  Switzerland,  and  ambassador  from  the  First 
Consul  to  the  Helvetic  government.  He  there  conducted  him- 
self so  much  to  the  satisfaction  of  Buonaparte,  that,  on  the  rup- 
ture with  your  country,  he  was  mude  commander  of  the  camp 
near  Montrtuil ;  and  last  year  his  wife  was  received  as  a  maid 
of  honour  to  the  Empress  of  the  French. 

This  maicl  of  honour  is  the  daughter  cf  a  washer-woman,  and 
was  kept  by  a  man-milliner  at  Strasburgh,  at  the  time  that  she 
eloped  with  Ney.  With  him  she  had  made  four  campaigns  as  a 
mistress,  before  the  municipality  -of  Coblentz  made  her  his  wife. 
Her  conduct  since  has  corresponded  with  that  of  her  husband. 
When  he  publicly  lived  with  mistresses,  she  did  not  live  private-  , 
ly  with  her  gallants  ;  but  the  instant  the  Emperor  of  the  French 
told  him  to  save  appearances,  if  he  desired  a  place  for  his  wife 
at  the  Imperial  court,  he  showed  himself  the  most  attentive  and 
faithful  of  husbands,  and  she  the  most  tender  and  dutiful  of  wives. 
H-jr  manners  are  not  polished,  but  they  are  pleasing  ;  and  though 

Bb 


278  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

not  handsome  in  her  person,  she  is  lively  ;  and  her  conversation 
is  entertaining,  and  her  society  agreeable.  The  Princess  Louis 
B  uonaparte  is  particularly  fond  of  her  ;  more  so  than  Napoleone 
perhaps  desires.  She  has  a  fault  common  with  most  of  our  court 
ladies  ;  she  cannot  resist,  when  opportunity  presents  itself,  thef 
temptation  of  gambling,  and  she  is  far  from  being  fortunate. 
Report  says,  that  more  than  once  she  has  been  reduced  to  acquit 
her  gambling  debts  by  personal  favours. 

Another  of  our  generals,  and  the  richest  of  them  all,  who  are 
now  serving  under  Buonaparte,  is  his  brother-in-law,  Prince  Mu- 
Tat.  According  to  some,  he  had  been  a  Septembrizer,  terrorist, 
jacobin,  robber,  and  assasin,  long  before  he  obtained  his  first  com- 
mission as  an  officer  ;  which  was  given  him  by  the  recommenda- 
tion of  Marat,  whom  he  in  return  afterwards  wished  to  immortalize, 
by  the  exchange  of  one  letter  in  his  own  name,  and  by  calling  him- 
self Mwrat,  instead  of  Marat.  Others,  however,  declare,  that 
his  father  was  an  honest  cobler,  very  superstitious,  residing  at 
Bastide,  near  Cahors,  and  destined  his  son  to  be  a  capuchin  friar, 
and  that  he  was  in  his  novitiate,  when  the  Revolution  tempted 
him  to  exchange  the  cowl  of  a  monk  for  the  regimentals  of  a 
soldier.  In  what  manner,  or  by  what  achievements,  he  gained 
promotion,  is  not  certain,  but  in  1796  he  was  a  chief  of  brigade, 
and  an  aide-de-camp  of  Buonaparte,  with  whom  he  went  to  Egypt, 
and  returned  thence  with  him  ;  and  who,  in  1801,  married  him  to 
his  sister  Maria  Annunciade,  in  1803  made  him  a  Governor  of 
Paris,  and  in  1804  a  Prince  ! 

The  wealth  which  Murat  has  collected  during  his  military  ser- 
vice, and  by  his  matrimonial  campaign,  is  rated  at  upwards  of 
fifty  millions  of  livres,  2,100,000/.  The  landed  property  he  pos- 
sesses in  France  alone  has  cost  him  forty -two  millions,  1 ,750,000/. 
and  it  is  whispered,  that  the  estates  bought  in  the  name  of  his 
wife,  both  in  France  and  Italy,  are  not  worth  much  less.  A  bro- 
ther-in-law of  his,  who  was  a  smith,  he  has  made  a  legislator  ; 
and  an  uncle,  who  was  a  tailor,  he  has  placed  in  the  senate.  A 
cousin  of  his,  who  was  a  chimney-sweeper,  is  now  a  tribune  ; 
and  his  niece,  who  was  an  apprentice  to  a  mantua-maker,  is  now 
married  to  one  of  the  Emperor's  chamberlains.  He  has  been 
vt*ry  generous  to  all  his  relations,  and  would  not  have  been 
ashamed  even  to  present  his  parents  ut  the  Imperial  Court;  had 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  2?y 

not  the  mother  on  the  first  information  of  his  princely  rank,  lost 
her  life,  and  the  father  his  senses — from  surprise  and  joy.  The 
millions  are  not  few,  tnat  he  has  procured  his  relatives  an  op- 
portunity to  gain.  His  brother-in-law,  the  legislator,  is  worth 
three  million  of  iivres,  125,OQO/. 

It  has  been  asserted  before,  and  I  repeat  it  again  :  "  It  is  ava- 
rice, and  not  the  mania  of  innovation,  or  the  jargon  of  liberty, 
that  has  led,  and  ever  will  lead  the  Revolution,  its  promoters, 
its  accomplices,  and  its  instruments.  Wherever  they  pene- 
trate, plunder  follows  ;  rapine  was  their  first  object,  of  which 
ferocity  has  been  but  the  means.  The  French  Revolution  was 
fostered  by  robbery  and  murder,  two  nurses  that  will  adhere  to 
her  to  the  last  hour  of  her  existence." 

General  Murat  is  the  trusty  executioner  of  all  the  Emperor's 
secrets  deeds  of  vengeance,  or  public  acts  of  revolutionary  jus- 
tice. It  was  under  his  private  responsibility,  that  Pichegru,  Mo- 
reau,  and  Georges,  were  guarded  ;  and  he  saw  Pichegru  strang- 
led, Georges  guillotined,  and  Moreau  on  the  way  to  his  place 
of  exile.  After  the  seizure  and  trial  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien. 
some  doubts  existed  with  Napokone,  whether  even  the  soldiers 
of  his  Italian  guard  would  fire  at  this  Prince.  "  If  they  hesitate," 
said  Murat,  who  commanded  the  expedition  in  the  wood 
of  Vincennes,  "  my  pistols  are  loaded,  and  I  will  blow  out  his 
brains." 

His  wife  is  the  greatest  coquette  of  the  Buonaparte  family, 
Murat  was  at  first  alter  his  marriage,  rather  jealous  of  his  bro- 
ther-in-law Lucien,  whom  he  even  fought ;  but  Napoleone  hav- 
ing assured  him,  upon  his  word  of  honour,  that  his  suspicions 
were  unfounded,  he  is  now  the  model  of  complaisant  and  in- 
dulgent husbands  ;  but  his  mistresses  are  nearly  as  numerous 
as  Madame  Murat's  favourites.  He  has  a  young  man  aide-de- 
camp of  the  name  of  Flahault,  a  son  of  Talleyrand,  while  bishop 
of  Autun,  by  the  then  Countess  de  Flahault  whom  Madame 
Murat  would  not  have  been  sorry  to  have  had  for  a  consoler  at 
Paris,  while  her  princely  spouse  is  desolating  Germany, 


280  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  LV. 

Paris,   October,    1805. 

MY  LORD, 

SINCE  Buonaparte's  departure  for  Germany,  the  vigilance 
of  the  police  has  much  increased  ;  our  patroles  are  doubled  dur- 
ing the  night,  and  our  spies  more  numerous  and  more  insolent 
during  the'day.  Many  suspected  persons  have  also  been  exiled  to 
some  distance  from  this  capital,  while  others,  for  a  measure  of 
safety,  have  been  shut  up  in  the  Temple,  or  in  the  Castle  of 
Vincennes.  These  lettres  dc  cachet,  or  mandates  of  arrest,  are 
expedited  during  the  Emperor's  absence  exclusively  by  his  bro- 
ther Louis,  after  a  report,  or  upon  a  request,  of  the  minister  of 
police,  Fouche. 

I  have  mentioned  to  you  before,  that  Louis  Buonaparte  is 
both  a  drunkard  and  a  libertine.  When  a  young  and  unprinci- 
pled man  of  such  propensities  enjoys  an  unrestrained  authority, 
it  cannot  be  surprising  to  hear  that  he  has  abused  it.  He  had 
not  been  his  brother's  military  viceroy  twenty-four  hours,  before 
one  set  of  our  Parisians  were  amused,  while  others  were  shocked 
and  scandalized  at  a  tragical  intrigue  enterprised  by  his  Impe- 
rial Highness. 

Happening  to  see  at  the  opera  a  very  handsome  young  woman 
in  the  boxes,  he  dispatched  one  of  his  aides-de-camp  to  reconnoi- 
tre the  ground,  and  to  find  out  who  she  was.  All  gentlemen  at- 
tached to  his  person  or  household  are  also  his  pimps,  and  are  no 
novices  in  forming  or  executing  plans  of  seduction.  Caulincourt 
(the  officer  he  employed  in  this  affair)  returned  soon,  but  had 
succeeded  only  in  one  part  of  the  business.  He  had  not  been  able 
to  speak  to  the  lady,  but  was  informed  that  she  had  only  been 
married  a  fortnight  to  a  manufacturer  of  Lyons,  who  was  seated 
by  her  side,  jealous  of  his  wife  as  a  lover  of  his  mistress.  He 
gave  at  the  same  time,  as  his  opinion,  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  employ  the  police  commissary  to  arrest  the  husband  when  he 
left  the  play,  under  some  pretext  or  other,  while  some  of  the 
friends  of  Prince  Louis  took  advantage  of  the  confusion  to  seize 
the  wife,  and  carry  her  to  his  hotel.  An  order  was  directly  sign- 
ed by  Louis,  according  to  which  the  police  commissary,  Chazot. 
was  to  arrest  the  manufacturer,  Leboure,  of  Lyons,  and  put  him 
It>to  a  post-chaise,  under  the  care  of  two  gens-d'armes,  who  wcr;- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  281 

to  see  him  safe  at  Lyons,  where  he  was  to  sign  a  promise  of  not 
returning  to  Paris  without  the  permission  of  government,  being 
suspected  of  stock-jobbing  (agiotage).    Every  thing  succeeded 
according  to  the  proposal  of  Caulincourt,  and  Louis  found  Ma- 
dame Leboure  crying  in  his  saloon.    It  is  said  that  she  promised 
to  surrender  her  virtue  upon  condition  of  only  once  more  seeing 
her  husband,  to  be  certain  that  he  was  not  murdered,  but  that 
Louis  refused,  and  obtained  by  brutal  force,  and  the  assistance  of 
his  infamous  associates,  that  conquest  over  her  honour  which  had 
not  been  yielded  to  his  intreaties  or  threats.  His  enjoyment,  how- 
ever, was  but  of  short  continuance  :  he  had  no  sooner  fallen  asleep, 
than  his  poor  injured  victim  left  the  bed,  and  flying  into  his  an- 
ti-room, stabbed  herself  with  his  sword.    On  the  next  morning 
she  was  found  a  corpse,  weltering  in  her  blood.    In  the  hope  of 
burying  this  infamy  in  secrecy,  her  body  was,  on  the  next  eve- 
ning, when  it  was  dark,  put  into  a  sack,  and  thrown  into  the  ri- 
ver, where,  being  afterwards  discovered,  the  police  agents  gave 
out  that  she  had  fallen  the  victim  of  assassins.  But  when  Ma- 
dame Leboure  was  thus  seized  at  the  opera,  besides  her  husband, 
her  parents  and  a  brother  were  in  her  company  ;  and  the  latter 
did  not  lose  sight  of  the  carriage  in  which  his  sister  was  placed, 
till  it  had  entered  the  hotel  of  Louis  Buonaparte,  where,  on  the 
next  day,  he,  with  his  father,  in  vain  claimed  her.   As  soon  as 
the  husband  was  informed  of  the  untimely  end  of  his  wife,  he 
wrote  a  letter  to  her  murderer,  and  shot  himself  immediately  af- 
terwards through  the  head  :  but  bis  own  head  was  not  the  place 
•where  he  should  have  sent  the  bullet ;  to  destroy  with  it  the  cause 
of  his  wretchedness  would  only  have  been  an  act  of  retaliation,  in 
a  country  where  power  forces  the  law  to  lie  dormant,  and  where 
justice  is  invoked  in  vain,  when  the  criminal  is  powerful. 

I  have  said  that  this  intrigue,  as  it  is  styled  by  courtesy,  in 
our  fashionable  circles,  amused  one  part  of  the  Parisians  ;  and  I 
believe  the  word  amuse  is  not  improperly  employed  in  this  in- 
stance. In  a  dozen  parties  where  I  have  been  since,  this  unfor- 
tunate adventure  has  always  been  an  object  of  conversation,  of 
witticisms,  but  not  of  blame,  except  at  Madame  Fouche's,  where 
Madame  Leboure  was  very  much  blamed,  indeed,  for  having 
been  so  over  nice,  and  foolishly  scrupulous* 


•282  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Another  intrigue  of  his  Imperial  Highness,  which  did  not  in- 
Oeeclend  tragically,  was  related  last  night,  at  the  tea-party  of  Ma- 
dame Recamier.  A  man  of  the  name  of  Deroux  had  lately  been 
condemned  by  our  criminal  tribunals,  for  forging  bills  of  ex- 
change, to  stand  in  the  pillory  six  hours,  and  after  being  mark- 
ed with  a  hot  iron  on  his  shoulders,  to  work  in  the  galleys  for 
twenty  years.  His  daughter,  a  young  girl,  under  fifteen,  who  lived 
•with  her  grandmother,  (having  lost  her  mother)  went,  accompa- 
nied by  the  old  lady,  and  presented  a  petition  to  Louis,  in  favour 
of  her  father.  Her  youth  and  modesty,  more  than  her  beauty, 
inspired  the  unprincipled  libertine  with  a  desire  of  ruining  in- 
nocence, under  the  colour  of  clemency  to  guilt.  He  ordered 
jier  to  call  on  his  chamberlain  Darjusson,  in  an  hour,  and  she 
should  obtain  an  anwer.  There,  either  seduced  by  paternal  af- 
fection, intimidated  by  threats,  or  imposed  upon  by  delusive  and 
engaging  promises,  she  engaged  her  virtue  for  an  order  of  re- 
lease for  a  parent  ;  and  so  satisfied  was  Louis  with  his  bargain, 
that  he  added  her  to  the  number  of  his  regular  mistresses. 

As  soon  as  Deroux  had  recovered  his  liberty,  he  visited  his 
daughter  in  her  new  situation,  where  he  saw  an  order  of  Louis, 
on  the  Imperial  treasury,  for  twelve  thousand  livres,  (500/.)  des- 
tined to  pay  the  upholsterer  who  had  furnished  her  apartment. 
This  gave  him,  no  doubt,  the  idea  of  making  the  Prince  pay  a 
higher  value  for  his  child,  and  he  forged  another  order  for  sixty 
thousand  livres,  (2500/.)  so  closely  resembling  it,  that  it  was 
Vithout  suspicion  acquitted  by  the  Imperial  treasurer.  Possessing 
this  money,  he  fabricated  a  pass  in  the  name  of  Louis,  as  a  couri- 
er carrying  dispatches  to  the  Emperor  in  Germany,  with  which 
he  set  out,  and  arrived  safe  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine.  His 
forgeries  were  only  discovered  after  he  had  written  a  letter  from 
Frankfort  to  Louis,  acquitting  his  daughter  of  all  knowledge  of 
what  he  had  done. 

In  the  first  moment  of  anger,  her  Imperial  lover  ordered  her 
to  be  arrested, but  he  has  since  forgiven  her,  and  taken  her  back 
to  his  favour.  This  trick  of  Deroux  has  pleased  Fouehe,  who 
long  opposed  his  release,  from  a  knowledge  of  his  dangerous  ta- 
lent and  vicious  character.  He  had  once  before  released  himself 
with  a  forged  order  from  the  minister  of  police,  whose  hand- 
writing he  had  only  seen  in  a  minute  upon  his  own  mandate  of 
imp  risonment. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  2 80 

LETTER  LXIV. 

Paris,  October,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

THOUGH  loudly  complained  of  by  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud, 
"be  Cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg!!  has  conducted  itself  in  these  cri- 
tical times  with  prudence  without  weakness,  and  with  firmness 
without  obstinacy.  In  its  connexions  with  our  government  it  has 
never  lost  sight  of  its  own  dignity,  and  therefore  never  endured 
without  resentment  those  impertinent  innovations  in  the  etiquette 
of  our  court,  and  in  the  manner  and  language  of  our  Emperor  to 
the  representatives  of  legitimate  sovereigns.  Had  similar  becom- 
ing' sentiments  directed  the  councils  of  all  other  princes,  and  the 
behaviour  of  their  ambassadors  here,  spirited  remonstrancesmight 
have  moderated  the  pretensions  or  passions  of  upstart  vanity, 
while  a  forbearance  and  silence  equally  impolitic  and  shameful, 
have  augmented  insolence,  by  flattering  the  pride  of  an  insup- 
portable and  outrageous  ambition. 

The  Emperor  of  Russia  would  not  have  been  so  veil  repre- 
sented here,  had  he  not  been  so  wisely  served  and  advised  in  his 
council-chamber  at  St.  Petersburg!!.  Ignorance  and  folly  com- 
monly select  fools  for  their  agents,  wl  ile  genius  and  capacity 
employ  men  of  their  own  mould  and  of  their  own  cast.  It  is  a 
remarkable  truth  that  notwithstanding  the  frequent  revolutions 
in  Russia,  since  the  death  of  Peter  the  First,  the  ministerial  helm 
has  always  been  in  able  hands ;  the  progressive  and  uninterrupt- 
ed increase  of  the  real  and  relative  power  of  the  Russian  empire 
evinces  the  reality  of  this  assertion. 

The  Russian  Chancellor,  Count  Alexander  WoronzofT,  may 
be  justly  called  the  chief  of  political  veterans,  whether  his  talents 
or  long  services  are  considered.  Catherine  II.  though  a  volup- 
tuous Princess,  was  a  great  sovereign,  and  a  competent  judge  of 
merit ;  and  it  was  her  unbiassed  choice  that  seated  Count  Wo- 
ronzoff,  when  young,  in  her  councils.  Though  the  intrigues  of 
favourites  have  sometimes  removed  him,  he  always  retired  with 
the  esteem  of  his  sovereign,  and  was  recalled  without  caballing  or 
cringing  to  return.  He  is  admired  by  all  who  have  the  honour 
of  approaching  him,  as  much  for  his  obliging  condescension  as 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

for  his  great  information.  No  petty  views,  no  petty  caprices, 
no  petty  vengeances  find  room  in  his  generous  bosom.  He  is 
known  to  have  conferred  benefactions  not  only  on  his  enemies, 
but  on  those  who,  at  the  very  time,  were  meditating  his  destruc- 
tion. His  opinion  is,  that  a  patriotic  minister  should  regard 
no  other  as  his  enemies  but  those  conspiring  against  their 
country,  and  acknowledge  no  favourites  incapable  of  well  serving 
the  state. 

Prince  de  Z waited  on  him  one  day,  and,  after  hesitating 

some  time,  began  to  compliment  him  on  his  liberal  sentiments, 
and  concluded,  by  asking  the  place  of  governor  for  his  cousin, 
with  whom  he  had  reason  to  suppose  the  Count  much  offended, 
"  I  am  happy,"  said  his  Excellency,  "  to  oblige  you,  and  to  do 
my  duty  at  the  same  time.  Here  is  a  libel  he  wrote  against  me, 
and  presented  to  the  Empress,  who  graciously  has  communicat- 
ed it  to  me,  in  answer  to  my  recommendation  of  him  yesterday,, 
to  the  place  you  ask  for  him  to-day.  Read  what  1  have  written 
on  the  libel,  and  you  will  be  convinced  that  it  is  not  my  fault,  if 
he  is  not  to-day  a  governor.5'  In  two  hours  afterwards,  the  nomi- 
nation was  announced  to  Prince  Z ,  who  was  himself  at  the 

head  of  a  cabal  against  the  minister.  In  any  country  such  an 
act  would  have  been  laudable,  but  where  despotism  rules  with 
unopposed  sway,  it  is  both  honourable  and  praiseworthy. 

Prince  Adam  de  Czartorinsky,  the  assistant  of  Count  de  Wo- 
ronzoff,  and  minister  of  the  foreign  department,  unites  with  the 
vigour  of  youth,  the  experience  of  age.  He  has  travelled  in 
most  countries  in  Europe,  not  solely  to  figure  at  courts,  to  dance 
at  balls,  to  look  at  pictures,  or  to  collect  curiosities,  but  to  study 
the  characters  of  the  people,  the  laws  by  which  they  are  govern- 
ed, and  their  moral  or  social  influence,  with  regard  to  their  com- 
forts or  misery.  He  therefore  brought  back  with  him  a  stock 
of  knowledge,  not  to  be  acquired  in  books,  but  only  found  in  the 
world,  by  frequenting  different  and  opposite  societies  with  obser- 
vation, penetration,  and  genius.  "With  manners  as  polished  as 
his  mind  is  well  informed,  he  not  only  possesses  the  favour,  but 
the  friendship  of  his  Prince  ;  and,  what  is  still  more  rare,  is 
worthy  of  both.  All  sovereigns  have  favourites,  few  ever  had 
any  friends  ;  because  it  is  more  easy  to  flatter  vanity,  than  to 
display  a  liberal  disinterestedness  i  to  bow  meanly,  than  to  in- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  285 

struct  or  to  guide  with  delicacy  and  dignity  ;  to  abuse  the  con- 
fidence of  the  Prince  than  to  use  it  to  his  honour,  and  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  his  government. 

That  such  a  monarch  as  Alexander,  and  such  ministers  as 
Count  cle  Woronzoff  and  Prince  de  Czartorinsky,  should  appoint 
a  Count  de  Mai  koff  to  a  high  and  important  post,  was  not  unex- 
pected, by  any  one  not  ignorant  of  his  merit.  ,  , 

Count  de  Markoff  was,  early  in  the  reign  of  Catharine  II.  em- 
ployed in  the  office  of  the  foreign  department  at  St.  Petersburg!"), 
and  was,  whilst  young,  entrusted  with  several  important  negotia- 
tions at  the  Courts  of  Berlin  andVienna,  when  Prussia  had  propos- 
ed the  first  partition  of  Poland.  He  afterwards  went  on  his  travels, 
from  which  he  was  recalled  to  fill  the  place  of  an  ambassador  to 
the  late  King  of  Sweden,  Gustavus  III.  He  was  succeeded,  in 
1784,  at  Stockholm,  by  Count  Muschin  Puschin,  after  being  ap- 
pointed a  secretary  of  state  in  his  own  country  ;  a  post  he  occu- 
pied with  distinction,  until  the  death  of  Catharine  II.  when  Paul 
the  First  revenged  upon  him,  as  well  as  on  most  others  of  the 
faithful  servants  of  this  Princess,  his  discontent  with  his  mother. 
He  was  then  exiled  to  his  estates,  where  he  retired  with  the  es- 
teem of  all  those  who  had  known  him.  In  1801,  immediately 
after  his  accession  to  the  throne,  Alexander  invited  Count  do 
Markoff  to  his  court  and  council  :  and  the  trusty  but  difficult 
task  of  representing  a  legitimate  sovereign,  at  the  court  of  our 
upstart  usurper,  was  conferred  on  him.  I  imagine  that  I  see 
the  great  surprise  of  this  nobleman,  when,  for  the  first  time,  he 
entered  the  audience-chamber  of  our  little  great  man,  and  saw 
him  fretting,  staring,  swearing,  abusing  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left,  for  one  smile  conferring  twenty  frowns,  and  for  one  civil 
word  ranking  use  of  fifty  harsh  expressions,  marching  in  the  di* 
plomatic  audience  as  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  and  commanding 
foreign  ambassadors  as  his  French  soldiers.  I  have  heard  that  the 
report  of  Count  de  Markoff  to  his  court,  describing  this  new  and 
rare  show,  is  a  chief-d'ceuvre  of  wit,  equally  amusing  and  instruc- 
tive. He  is  said  to  have  requested  of  his  cabinet  new  and  parti- 
cular orders  how  to  act  ;  whether  as  the  representative  of  an  in- 
dependent Sovereign,  or  as  most  of  the  other  members  of  the 
foreign  diplomatic  corps  in  France,  like  a  valet  of  the  First  Con- 
:.".\  ;  and  that,  in  the  latter  case,  he  implored,  us  a  favour,  an  im- 


•;st>  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

mediate  recall  ;  preferring,  had  he  no  other  choice  left,  sooner 
to  work  in  tne  mines  in  Siberia,  than  to  wear  in  France  the  dis- 
graceful fetters  of  a  Buonaparte.  His  subsequent  dignified  con- 
duct, proves  the  answer  of  his  court. 

Talleyrand's  craft  and  dissimulation  could  not  delude  the  saga- 
city of  Count  de  Markoff,  who  was,  therefore,  soon  less  liked 
by  the  minister,  than  by  the  First  Consul.  All  kind  of  low, 
vulgar,  and  revolutionary  chicanery  was  macie  use  of,  to  vex  or  to 
provoke  the  Russian  ambassador.  Sometimes  he  was  reproach- 
ed, as  having  emigrants  in  his  service  ;  another  time,  protec- 
tion was  refused  to  one  of  his  secretaries,  under  pretence  that  he 
was  a  Sardinian  subject.  Russian  travellers  were  insulted,  and 
detained  on  the  most  frivolous  pretences.  Two  Russian  noblemen 
were  even  arrested  on  our  sicie  of  the  Rhine,  because  Talleyrand 
had  forgot  to  sign  his  name  to  their  passes,  which  were  other- 
wise in  order.  The  fact  was,  that  our  minister  suspected  them 
of  carrying  some  papers,  which  he  wanted  to  see,  and,  there- 
fore, wrote  his  name  with  an  ink  of  such  a-  composition,  that,  af- 
ter a  certain  number  of  days,  every  thing  written  with  it  disap- 
peared. Their  effects  and  papers  were  strictly  searched  by  an 
agent  preceding  them  from  this  capital,  but  nothing  was  found  ; 
our  minister  being  .misinformed  by  his  spies. 

When  Count  de  Markoff  left  Sweden,  he  carried  with  him  an 
actress  of  the  French  theatre  at  Stockholm,  Madame  Hus,  an 
Alsacian  by  birth,  but  who  had  quitted  her  country  twelve  years 
before  the  Revolution,  and  could,  therefore,  never  be  included 
among  emigrants.  She  had  continued  as  a  mistress  and  an 
agreeable  companion  with  this  nobleman,  and  is  the  mother  of 
several  children  by  him,  who  has  never  been  married.  As  I 
have  often  said,  Talleyrand  is  much  obliged  to  any  foreign  diplo- 
matic agent,  who  allows  him  to  be  the  indirect  provider  or  pro- 
curer of  his  mistresses  ;  after,  in  vain,  tempting  Count  de  Mar- 
koff with  new  objects,  he  introduced  to  the  acquaintance  of  Ma- 
dame Hus,  some  of  his  female  emissaries.  Their  manoeuvres, 
their  insinuations,  and  even  their  presents,  were  all  thrown  away. 
The  lady  remained  a  faithful  friend,  and,  therefore,  refused  with 
indignation  to  degrade  herself  into  a  spy  on  her  lover.  Our  mi- 
nister then  first  discovered,  that  not  only  Madame  Hus  was  an 
emigrant,  but  had  been  a  great  benefactress,  and  constant  compa- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  287 

nion  of  emigrants  at  St.  Petersburgh,  and,  of  course,  deserved  to 
be  watched,  if  not  punished.  Count  de  Markoffis  reported  to 
have  said  to  Talleyrand,  on  this  grave  subject,  in  the  presence 
of  two  other  foreign  ambassadors,  "  A  propos !  what  shall  I  do. 
to  prevent  my  poor  Madame  Hus  from  being  shot  as  an  emi- 
grant, and  my  poor  children  from  becoming  prematurely  or- 
phans ?" — "  Sir,"  said  our  diplomatic  oracle,  "  she  should  have 
petitioned  the  First  Consul  for  permission  to  return  to  France, 
before  she  entered  it  ;  but,  in  regard  for  you,  if  she  is  firudent, 
she  will  not,  I  dare  say,  be  troubled  by  our  government." — "  I 
should  be  sorry  if  she  was  not,"  replied  the  Count,  with  a  signi- 
ficant look  ;  and  here  this  grand  affair  ended,  to  the  great  en- 
tertainment of  all  the  foreign  agents,  who  dared  to  smile  or  to 
laugh. 


LETTER  L2IV. 

Paris,  October,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

THE  Legion  of  Honour,  though  only  proclaimed  upon  Buo- 
naparte's assumption  of  the  Imperial  rank,  dates  from  the  first 
year  of  his  consulate.  To  prepare  the  public  mind  for  a  progres- 
sive elevation  of  himself,  and  for  consequential  distinctions  among 
all  classes  of  his  subjects,  he  distributed  among  the  military, 
arms  of  honour,  to  which  were  attached  precedence  and  privileges 
granted  by  him,  and  therefore, liable  to  cease  with  hispower  orlife, 
The  number  of  these  arms  increased  in  proportion  to  the  approach 
of  the  period  fixed  for  the  change  of  his  title,  and  the  erection  of  his 
throne.  When  he  judged  them  numerous  enough  to  support  his 
changes,  he  made  all  these  wearers  of  arms  of  honour,  Knights  ; 
never  before,  were  so  many  chevaliers  created  en  masse  ;  they  a- 
mounted  to  no  less  than  twenty -two  thousand  four  hundred,  distri- 
buted indifferent  corps  of  different  armies,  but  principally  in  the 
Army  of  England.  To  these  were  afterwards  joined  five  thousand 
nine  hundred  civil  functionaries,  men  of  letters,  artists,  &c.  To  re- 
move, however,  all  ideas  of  equality,  even  among  the  members  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour,  they  were  divided  into  four  classes,  grand 
officers,  commanders,  officers,  and  simple  legionaries. 


28S  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Every  one  who  has  observed  Buonaparte's  incessant  endea- 
vours to  intrude  himself  among  the  sovereigns  of  Europe,  was 
convinced  that  he  would  cajole,  or  force  as  many  of  them  as  he 
could,  into  his  revolutionary  knighthood ;  but  I  heard  men 
who  are  not  ignorant  of  the  selfishness  and  corruption  of  our 
times,  deny  the  possibility  of  any  independent  Prince  suffering 
his  name  to  be  registered  among  criminals  of  every  description, 
from  the  thief  who  picked  the  pockets  of  his  fellow-citizens  in' 
the  streets,  down  to  the  regicide  who  sat  in  judgment  and  con- 
demned his  King  ;  from  the  plunderers  who  have  laid  waste 
provinces,  republics,  and  kingdoms,  down  to  assussins  who  shot, 
drowned,  or  guillotined  their  countrymen  en  masse.  For  my  part, 
I  never  had  but  one  opinion,  and  it  unfortunately  has  turned  out  a 
just  one.  I  always  was  convinced  tnat  those  Princes  who  received 
other  presents  ft  cm  Buonaparte  could  have  no  plausible  excuse 
to  decline  his  ribands,  crosses,  and  stars.  But  who  could  have  pre- 
sumed to  think,  that  in  return  for  these  blood-stained  baubles,  they 
would  have  sacrificed  those  honourable  and  dignified  ornaments, 
which,  for  ages  past,  have  been  the  exclusive  distinction  of 
what  birth  had  exalted,  virtue  made  eminent,  talents  Conspi- 
cuous, honour  illustrious,1  or  valour  meritorious  !  Who  would 
have  dared  to  say,  that  the  Prussian  Eagle  and  the  Spanish 
Golden  Fleece  should  thus  be  prostituted,  thus  polluted  ?  I  do 
not  mean  by  this  remark,  to  throw  any  blame  on  the  conferring 
those  and  other  orders  on  Napoleone  Buonaparte,  or  even  on  his 
brothers  ;  I  know  it  is  usual,  between  legitimate  sovereigns  in  al- 
liance, sometimes  to  exchange  thtir  knighthoods  ;  but  to  debase 
royal  orders  so  much  as  to  present  them  to  a  Cambaceres,  a 
Talleyrand,  a  Fouche,  a  Bernadotte,  a  Fesch,  and  other  vile  and 
criminal  wretches,  I  do  not  deny,  to  have  excited  my  astonish- 
ment,  as  well  as  my  indignation.  What  honest,  I  do  not  say,  what 
rMe  subject  of  Prussia,  or  of  Spain,  will  hereafter  think  them- 
selves rewarded  for  their  loyalty,  industry,  patriotism,  or  zeal, 
when  they  remember  that  thtir  sovereigns  have  nothing  to  give 
but  what  the  rebel  has  obtained,  the  robber  worn,  the  murderer 
vilified,  and  the  regicide  debased  ? 

The  number  of  grand  officers  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  does 
not  yet  amount  to  more  than  eighty  ;  according  to  a  list,  circu- 
lated at  Milan  last  spring,  of  which  I  have  seen  a  copy.  Of  these 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  239 

grand  officers,  three  had  been  shoemakers,  two  tailors,  four  ba- 
kers, four  barbers,  six  friars,  eight  abbes,  six  officers,  three  ped- 
lars, three  chandlers,  seven  drummers,  sixteen  soldiers;,  and  eight 
regicides  ;  four  were  lawful  Kings,  and  the  six  others,  Electors, 
or  Princes  of  the  most  ancient  houses  in  Europe.  I  have  looked 
over  our  own  official  list,  and  as  far  as  I  know,  the  calculation  is 
exact,  both  with  regard  to  the  number  and  to  the  quality. 

This  new  institution  of  knighthood  produced  a  singular  effect 
on  my  vain  and  giddy  countrymen,  who,  for  twelve  years  before, 
had  scarcely  seen  a  star  or  a  riband,  except  those  of  foreign  am- 
bassadors, who  were  frequently  insulted  when  wearing  them.  It 
became  now  the  fashion  to  be  a  knight,  and  those  who  really 
were  not  so,  put  pinks,  or  rather  blooms,  or  flowers  of  a  darker 
red,  in  their  button  holes,  so  as  to  resemble,  and  to  be  taken  at  a 
distance  for  the  red  ribands  of  the  members  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour. 

A  man  of  the  name  of  Villeaume,  an  engraver  by  profession, 
took  advantage  of  this  knightly  fashion  and  mania,  and  sold  for 
four  Louis  d'ors,  not  only  the  stars,  but  pretended  letters  of  knight- 
hood, said  to  be  procured"  by  his  connexion  with  persons  of  the 
household  of  the  Emperor.  In  a  month's  time,  according  to  a 
register  kept  by  him,  he  had  made  twelve  hundred  and  fifty 
knights.  When  his  fraud  was  discovered,  he  was  already  out  of 
the  way,  safe  with  his  money  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  re- 
searches of  the  police,  has  not  since  been  taken. 

A  person,  calling  himself  Baron  Von  Rinken,  a  subject  and  an 
agent  of  one  of  the  many  Princes  of  Hohenlohe,  according  to  his 
own  assertion,  arrived  here  with  real  letters  and  patents  of  knight- 
hood, which  he  offered  to  sale  for  three  hundred  livres,  (12/.). 
The  stars  of  this  order  were  as  large  as  the  star  of  the  grand  of- 
ficers of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and  nearly  resembled  it ;  but  the 
ribands  were  of  a  different  colour.  He  had  already  disposed  of  a 
dozen  of  these  stars,  when  he  was  taken  up  by  the  police,  and 
shut  up  in  the  Temple,  where  he  still  remains.  Four  other 
agents  of  inferior  petty  German  Princes  have  also  been  arrested, 
for  offering  the  orders  of  their  sovereigns  to  sale. 

A  captain  Rouvais,  who  received  six  wounds  in  his  campaign 
under  Pichegru,  in  1794,  wore  the  star  of  the  Legion  of  J^onour 

c  c 


290  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

without  being  nominated  a  knight.  He  has  been  tried  by  a  mili- 
tary commission,  deprived  of  his  pension,  and  condemned  to  four 
years'  imprisonment,  in  irons.  He  proved  that  he  had  presented 
fourteen  petitions  to  Buonaparte,  for  obtaining  this  mark  of  dis- 
tinction, but  in  vain  ;  while  hundreds  of  others,  who  had  hardly 
seen  an  enemy,  or  at  the  most,  made  but  one  campaign,  or 
been  once  wounded,  had  succeeded  in  their  demands.  As  soon 
as  sentence  had  been  pronounced  against  him,  he  took  a  small 
pistol  from  his  pocket,  and  shot  himself  through  the  head,  say- 
ing, "  Some  one  else  will  soon  do  the  same  for  Buonaparte." 

A  cobler,  of  the  name  of  Matthieu,  either  in  a  fit  of  madness, 
or  from  hatred  to  the  new  order  of  things,  decorated  himself 
with  the  large  riband  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and  had  an  old 
star  fastened  on  his  coat.  Thus  accoutred,  he  went  into  the  Pa- 
lais Royal,  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  got  upon  a  chair,  and  began 
to  speak  to  his  audience  of  the  absurdity  of  true  republicans  not 
being  on  a  level,  even  under  an  Emperor,  and  putting  on,  like 
himself,  all  his  ridiculous  ornaments.  "  We  are  here,"  said  he. 
w  either  all  grand  officers,  or  there  exist  no  grand  officers  at  all  ; 
We  have  all  fought  and  paid  for  liberty,  and  for  the  Revolution, 
as  much  as  Buonaparte,  and  have,  therefore,  the  same  right  and 
claim  with  him.'*  Here  a  police  agent  and  some  gens-d'armes 
interrupted  his  eloquence,  by  taking  him  into  custody.  When 
Fouche  asked  him  what  he  meant  by  such  a  rebellious  behaviour  ; 
he  replied,  "  that  it  was  only  a  trial,  to  see  whether  destiny  had 
intended  him  to  become  an  Emperor,  or  to  remain  a  cobler." — 
On  the  next  day,  he  was  shot  as  a  conspirator.  I  saw  the  un- 
fortunate man  in  the  Palais  Royal ;  his  eyes  looked  wild,  and 
his  words  were  often  incoherent.  He  was  certainly  a  subject 
more  deserving  a  place  in  a  mad-house,  than  in  a  tomb. 

Cambaceres  has  been  severely  reprimanded  by  the  Emperor5 
for  showing  too  much  partiality  for  the  Royal  Prussian  Black 
Eagle,  by  wearing  it  in  preference  to  the  Imperial  Legion  of 
Honour.  He  was  given  to  understand,  that,  except  four  days  in 
the  year,  the  Imperial  etiquette  did  not  permit  any  subjects  to 
display  their  knighthood  of  the  Prussian  Order.  In  Madame 
Buonaparte's  last  drawing-room,  before  his  Imperial  Majesty  set 
out  for  the  Rhine,  he  was  ornamented  with  the  Spanish,  Neapoli- 
tan, Prussian,  and  Portuguese  Orders,  together  with  those  of 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  291 

the  French  Legion  of  Honour,  and  of  the  Italian  Iron  Crown. — 
I  have  seen  the  Emperor  Paul,  who  was  also  an  amateur  of 
ribands  and  stars,  but  never  with  so  many  at  once.  I  have  just 
heard  that  the  Grand  Master  of  Malta,  has  presented  Napoleone 
with  the  Grand  Cross  of  the  Maltese  Order.  This  is  certainly  a 
compliment  to  him,  who,  in  July>  1798,  officially  declared  to  his 
then  sectaries,  the  Turks  and  Mussulmen,  "  that  the  Grand 
Master,  Commanders,  Knights,  and  Order  of  Malta  existed  ?io 
?nore." 

I  have  heard  it  related  for  a  certainty,  among  our  fashionable 
ladies,  that  the  Empress  of  the  French  also  intends  to  institute  a 
new  order  of  female  knighthood,  not  of  honour ^  but  of  cojijidence  ; 
of  which  all  our  court  ladies,  all  the  wives  of  our  generals,  pub- 
lic funclionaries,  Sec.  are  to  be  members.  The  Imperial  Prin- 
cesses of  the  Buonaparte  family,  are  to  be  hereditary  grand  offi- 
cers, together  with  as  many  foreign  empresses,  queens,  princes- 
ses, countesses,  and  baronesses,  as  can  be  bayoneted  into  this  re- 
volutionary sisterhood.  Had  the  Continent  remained  tranquil, 
it  would  already  have  been  officially  announced  by  a  Senatus  Con- 
sukum.  I  should  suppose  that  Madame  Buonaparte  with  her 
splendid  court,  and  brilliant  retinue  of  German  Princes  and  Elec- 
tors at  Strasburgh,  need  only  say  a  word,  to  find  hundreds  of 
princely  recruits  for  her  knighthood  in  fietto.  Her  mantle,  as  a 
Grand  Mistress  of  the  Order  of  CONFIDENCE,  has  been  already 
embroidered  at  Lyons  ;  and  those  who  have  seen  it,  assert  that 
it  is  truly  superb.  The  diamonds  of  the  star  on  the  mantle  are 
valued  at  six  hundred  thousand  livres,  (25,000/.). 


LETTER  LXVI. 

Paris,   October,  1805. 


MY  LORD 


SINCE  Buonaparte's  departure  for  Germany,  fifteen  indivi- 
duals have  been  brought  here  chained  from  La  Vendee,  and  the 
western  departments,  and  are  imprisoned  in  the  Temple.  Their 
crime  is  not  exactly  known  ;  but  private  letters  from  those  coun- 
tries relate,  that  they  were  recruiting  for  another  insurrection, 
and  that  some  of  them  were  entrusted  as  ambassadors  from  their 


292  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

discontented  countrymen  to  Louis  XVIII.  to  ask  for  his  return  to 
France,  and  for  the  assistance  of  Russia,  Sweden,  and  England, 
to  support  his  claims. 

These  are, .however,  reports  to  which  I  do  not  affix  much  cre- 
dit.    Had  the  prisoners  in  the  Temple  been  guilty,  or  only  ac- 
cused, of  such  crimes,  they  \vould  long  ago  have  been  tortured, 
tried  and  executed,  or  executed  without  a  trial.  I  suppose  them 
mere  hostages  arrested  by    our    government,    as  security    for 
the  tranquillity   of  the  Chouan  departments,  during  our  armies' 
occupation   elsewhere.     We  have,  nevertheless,  two  raoveable 
columns  of  six  thousand  men  each,  in  the  country,  or  in  its  vi- 
cinity, and  it  would  not  be  only  impolitic,  but  a  cruelty,  to  en- 
gage or  allure  the  unfortunate  people  of  these  wretched  countries 
into  any  plots,  which,  situated  as  affairs  now  are,  would  be  pro- 
ductive of  great  and  certain  evil  to  them,  without  even  the  pro- 
bability of  any  benefit  to  the  cause  of  Royalty,  and  of  the  Bour- 
bons.    I  do  not  mean  to  say   by  this,  that  no  disaffection  exists 
against  Buonaparte's  tyranny,  or  that  the   Bourbons   have  no 
friends  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  latter  are  not  few,  and  the  former 
very  numerous.     But  a  kind  of  apathy,  the  effect  of  unavailing 
resistance  to  usurpation  and  oppression,  has  seized  on  most 
minds,  and  annihilated   what  little  remained  of  our  never  very 
great  public  spirit.     We  are  tired  of  every  thing,  even  of  our 
existence,  and  care  no  more  whether  we  are  governed  by  a  Robe- 
spierre, or  by  a  Buonaparte,  by  a  Barras,  or  by  Louis  XVIII. 
Except,  perhaps,  among  the  military,  or  among  some  ambitious 
schemers,  remnants  of  former  factions,   I  do  not  believe  a  Mo- 
reau,  a  Macdonald,  a  Lucien  Buonaparte,  or  any  person  exiled 
by  the  Emperor,  and  formerly  popular,  could  collect  fifty  trusty 
conspirators  in  all  France  ;    at  least,  as  long  as  our  armies  are 
victorious,  and  organized  in  their  present  formidable  manner. — 
Should  any  thing   happen  to  our  present  chief,  an  impulse  may 
be  given  to  the  minds  now  sunk  down,  and  raise  our  characters 
from  their  present  torpid  state.      But  until  such  an  event,  we 
shall  remain  as  we  are  ;  indolent,  but  submissive,  sacrificing  our 
children  and  treasures,  for  a  cause  we  detest,  and  for  a  man  we 
abhor.     I  am  sorry  to  say  it,  but  it  certainly  docs  no  honour  to 
my  nation,  when  one  million  of  desperadoes,  of  civil  and  military 
•  banditti*  are  suffered  to  govern,  tyrannize  and  pillage,  at  tin-:-/ 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  293 

ease,  and  undisturbed,  thirty  millions  of  people,  to  whom  their 
past  crimes  are  known,  and  who  have  every  reason  to  apprehend 
their  future  wickedness. 

This  astonishing  resignation  (if  I  can  call  it  so,  and  if  it  does 
not  deserve  a  worse  name)  is  so  much  the  more  incomprehensi- 
ble, as  the  poverty  of  the  higher  and  the  middling  classes  is  as 
great  as  the  misery  of  the  people  ;  and  except  those  employed 
under  Buonaparte,  and  some  few  upstart  contractors,  or  army 
commissaries,  the  greatest  privations  must  be  submitted  to,  in 
order  to  pay  the  enormous  taxes,  and  make  a  decent  appearance, 
I  know  families  of  five,  six,  and  seven  persons,  who  formerly 
were  wealthy,  and  now  have  for  a  scanty  subsistence,  an  income 
of  twelve  or  eighteen  hundred  livres,  50/.  or  75l.  per  year,  with 
which  they  are  obliged  to  live  as  they  can  ;  being  deprived  of 
all  the  resource  that  elsewhere  labour  offers  to  the  industrious, 
and  all  the  succours  compassion  bestows  on  the  necessitous.  You 
know  that  here  all  trade,  and  all  commerce,  are  at  a  stand  or  de- 
stroyed ;  and  the  hearts  of  our  modern  rich,  are  as  unfeeling  as 
their  manners  arc  vulgar  and  brutal. 

A  family  of  ci-devant  nobles  of  my  acquaintance,  possessing 
once  a  revenue  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  livres,  (6,000/.) 
subsist  now  on  fifteen  hundred  livres  (62/.)  per  year  ;  and  this 
sum  must  support  six  individuals,  the  father  and  mother,  with 
four  children  !  It  does  so  indeed,  by  an  arrangement  of  only 
one  poor  meal  in  the  day  ;  a  dinner  four  times,  and  a  supper 
three  times  in  the  week.  They  endure  their  distress  with  toler- 
able cheerfulness,  though  in  the  same  street  where  they  occupy 
the  garrets  of  a  house,  resides  in  an  elegant  hotel,  a  man  who 
was  once  their  groom,  but  is  now  a  tribune,  and  has,  within  these 
last  twelve  years,  as  a  conventional  deputy,  ttmassed,  in  his  mis- 
sion to  Brabant  and  Flanders,  twelve  millions  of  livres  (50,000/.) 
He  has  kindly  let  my  friend  understand  that  his  youngest  daugh- 
ter might  be  received  as  a  chambermaid  to  his  wife  ;  being  in- 
formed that  she  has  got  a  good  education. — All  the  four  daughters 
are  good  musicians,  good  drawers,  and  very  able  at  their  needles. 
By  their  talents  they  supported  their  parents  and  themselves, 
during  their  emigration  in  Germany  ;  but  here  they  are  of  but 
little  use  or  advantage.  Those  upstarts  who  want  instruction, 

cc  2 


294  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

or  works  of  this  sort,  apply  to  the  first  most  renowned  and  fa- 
shionable masters  or  mistresses,  -while  others,  and  those  the 
greatest  number,  cannot  afford  even  to  pay  the  inferior  ones,  and 
the  most  cheap.  This  family  is  one  of  the  many  that  regret 
having  returned  from  their  emigration.  But  you  may  ask,  why 
do  they  not  go  back  again  to  Germany  ?  First,  it  would  expose 
them  to  suspicion,  and  perjiaps  to  ruin,  were  they  to  demand 
passes  ;  and  if  this  danger  or  difficulty  were  removed,  they  have 
no  money  for  such  a  long  journey. 

But  this  sort  of  penury  and  wretchedness  is  also  common 
with  the  families  of  the  former  wealthy  merchants  and  tradesmen. 
Paper  money,  a  maximum,  and  requisitions,  have  reduced  those 
that  did  not  share  in  the  crimes  and  pillage  of  the  revolution,  as 
much  as  the  proscribed  nobility.  And,  contradictory  as  it  may 
seem,  the  number  of  persons  employed  in  commercial  specula- 
tions has  more-than  tripled  since  we  experienced  a  general  stag- 
nation of  trade,  the  consequence  of  war,  the  want  of  capitals,  pro- 
tection, encouragement,  and  confidence  ;  but  one  of  the  maga- 
zines of  1789,  contained  more  goods  and  merchandise  than  twen- 
ty modern  magazines  put  together.  The  expenses  of  these  new 
merchants  are,  however,  much  greater  than  sixteen  years  ago,  th« 
profit  less,  and  the  credit  still  less  than  the  profit.  Hence  nume- 
rous bankruptcies,  frauds,  swindling,  forgeries,  and  other  evils  of 
immorality,  extravagance,  and  misery.  The  fair  and  honest 
dealers  suffer  most  from  the  intrusion  of  these  infamous  specula- 
tors, who,  expecting,  like  other  vile  men  wallowing  in  wealth, 
under  their  eyes,  to  make  rapid  fortunes,  and  to  escape  detection 
as  well  as  punishment,  commit  crimes  to  soothe  disappointment. 
Nothing  is  done  but  for  ready  money,  and  even  bankers'  bills,  or 
bills  accepted  by  bankers,  are  not  taken  in  payment,  before  the 
signatures  are  avowed  by  the  parties  concerned.  You  can  easily 
conceive  what  confusion,  what  expenses,  and  what  loss  of  time, 
these  precautions  must  occasion ;  but  the  numerous  forgeries 
and  fabrications  have  made  them  absolutely  necessary. 

The .  farmers  and  land-holders  are  better  off  ;  but  they  also 
complain  of  the  heavy  taxe-s,  and  the  low  price  paid  for  what 
they  bring  to  the  market,  which  frequently,  for  want  of  ready 
money,  remains  long  unsold.  They  take  nothing  but  cash  in 
payment  ;  for  notwithstanding  the  endeavours  of  our  govern- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  295 

ment,  the  notes  of  the  bank  of  France  have  never  been  in  circu- 
lation among  them.  They  have  also  been  subject  to  losses  by 
the  fluctuation  of  paper  money,  by  extortions,  requisitions,  and 
by  the  maximum.  In  this  class  of  my  countrymen  remains 
still  some  little  national  spirit,  and  some  independence  of  charac- 
ter ;  but  these  are  far  from  being  favourable  to  Buonaparte,  or 
to  the -Imperial  government,  which  the  yearly  increase  of  taxes, 
and,  above  all,  the  conscription,  have  rendered  extremely  odious, 
You  may  judge  of  the  great  difference  in  the  taxation  of  lands 
and  landed  property  now,  and  under  our  kings,  when  1  inform 
you,  that  a  friend  of  mine,  who,  in  1792,  possessed,  in  one  of  the 
western  departments,  twenty-one  farms,  paid  less  in  contribution 
for  them  all,  than  he  does  now  for  the  three  farms  he  has  recov- 
ered from  the  wreck  of  his  fortune. 


LETTER  LXVII. 

J'arisy  October,  1805, 
MY  LORD, 

IN  a  military  empire,  ruled  by  a  military  despot,  it  is  a  neces- 
sary policy  that  the  education  of  youth  should  also  be  military. 
In  all  our  public  schools  or  prytanees,  a  boy,  from  the  moment 
of  entering,  is  registered  in  a  company,  and  regularly  drilled,  ex- 
ercised, and  reviewed,  punished  for  neglect  or  fault  according  to 
martial  law,  and  advanced,  if  displaying  genius  or  application. 
All  our  private  schools,  that  wish  fcr  the.  protection  of  govern  - 
ment,  are  forced  to  submit  to  the  same  military  rules,  and  there- 
fore, most  of  our  conscripts,  so  far  from  being  recruits,  are  fit 
for  any  service  as  soon  as  put  into  requisition.  The  fatal  effects 
to  the  independence  of  Europe  to  be  dreaded  from  this  sole  inno- 
vation, I  apprehend,  have  too  little  been  considered  by  other  na- 
tions. A  great  power,  that  can  without  obstacle,  and  with  but 
little  expense,  in  four  weeks  increase  its  disposable  military  force 
from  one  hundred  and  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
thousand  young  men,  accustomed  to  do  military  duty  from  their 
youth,  must  finally  become  the  master  of  all  other  or  rival  fiowera, 
and  dispose  at  leisure  of  empires,  kingdoms  principalities,  and 
republics. — NOTHING  CAN  SAVE  THEM,  BUT  THE  ADOPTION  OF 

SIMILAR.  MEASURES  FOR  THEIR   PRESERVATION  AS  HAVE   BEE3T 
ADOPTED  FOR  THEIR  SUBJUGATION. 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

When  CEtat  Militaire  for  year  13  (a  work  containing1  the  ofti- 
cial  statement  of  our  military  forces)  was  presented  to  Buona- 
parte by  Berthier,  the  latter  said,  "  Sire,  I  lay  before  your  Majes- 
ty the  book  of  the  destiny  of  the  world,  which  your  hands  direct 
as  the  sovereign  guide  of  the  armies  of  your  empire."  This  com- 
pliment is  a  truth,  and  therefore  no  flattery.  It  might  as  justly 
have  been  addressed  to  a  Moreau,  a  Macdonald,  a  Lecourbe9 
or  to  any  other  generals,  as  to  Buonaparte,  because  a  superior 
number  of  well  disciplined  troops,  let  them  be  well  or  indifferent- 
ly commanded,  will  defeat  those  inferior  in  number.  Three  to 
one  would  even  overpower  an  army  of  giants.  Add  to  it  the  uni- 
ty of  plans,  of  dispositions,  and  of  execution,  which  Buonaparte 
enjoys  exclusively  over  such  a  great  number  of  troops,  while  ten, 
or  perhaps  fifty,  will  direct  or  contradict  every  movement  of  his 
opponents.  I  tremble  when  I  meditate  on  Berthier's  assertion  ; 
may  I  never  live  to  see  it  realized,  and  to  see  all  hitherto  indepen- 
dent nations,  prostrated,  acknowledge  that  Buonaparte  and  desti- 
ny are  the  sarne^  and  the  same  distributer  of  good  and  evil ! 

One  of  the  bad  consequences  of  this  our  military  education  of 
youth  is  a  total  absence  of  all  religious  and  moral  lessons.  Ar- 
TKiucl  had,  last  August,  the  courage  to  complain  of  this  infamous 
neglect  in  the  National  Institute  :  "  The  youth,"  said  he,  "  receive 
no  other  instruction,  but  lessons  to  march,  to  fire,  to  bow,  to 
dance,  to  sit,  to  lie,  and  to  impose  with  a  good  grace.  I  do  not 
ask  for  Spartans  or  Romans,  but  we  want  Athenians,  and  our 
schools  are  only  forming  Sybarites.'*  Within  twenty-four  hours 
afterwards,  Arnaucl  was  visited  by  a  police  agent,  accompanied 
by  two  gens-cl'armes  ;  and  an  order  signed  by  Fouche,  which 
condemned  him  to  reside  at  Orleans,  and  not  to  return  to  Paris, 
without  the  permission  of  the  government  ;  a  punishment  re- 
garded here  as  very  moderate,  for  such  an  indiscreet  zeal. 

A  schoolmaster  at  Auteuil,  near  this  capital,  of  the  name  of 
Gouron,  had  a  private  seminary,  organized  upon  the  footing  of 
our  former  colleges.  In  some  few  months  he  was  offered  more 
puptlstfaan-fce- well  could  attend  to,  and  his  house  shortly  became 
very  fashionable,  even  for  our  upstarts,  who  sent  their  children 
there  in  preference.  He  was  ordered  before  Fouche  last  Christ- 
inas, and  commanded  to  change  the  hours  hitherto  employed  in 
teaching  religion  and  morals  to  military  exercise  and  instruction^ 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  297 

as  both  more  necessary  and  more  salubrious  for  French  youth, 
Having  replied  that  such  an  alteration  was  contrary  to  his  plan, 
and  agreement  with  the  parents  of  his  scholars,  the  minister 
stopped  him  short,  by  telling  him  that  he  must  obey  what  had 
been  prescribed  by  government,  or  stand  the  consequences  of  his 
refractory  spirit.  Having  consulted  his  friends  and  patrons,  he 
divided  the  hours,  and  gave  half  of  the  time  usually  allotted  to 
religioner  morality  to  the  study  of  military  exercise  ;  his  pupils, 
however,  remained  obstinate,  broke  the  drum,  and  tore  and  burnt 
the  colours  he  had  bought.  As  this  was  not  his  fault,  he  did  not 
expect  any  disturbance,  particularly  after  having  reported  to  the 
police  both  his  obedience  and  the  unforeseen  result.  But,  last 
March,  his  house  was  suddenly  surrounded  in  the  night  by  gens- 
d'armes,  and  some  police  agents  entered  it.  All  the  boys  were 
ordered  to  dress,  and  to  pack  up  their  effects,  and  to  follow  the 
gens-d'armes  to  several  other  schools,  where  the  government 
had  placed  them,  and  of  which  their  parents  would  be  informed. 
Gouron,  his  wife,  four  ushers,  and  six  servants,  were  all  arrested 
and  carried  to  the  police  office,  where  Fouche,  after  reproaching 
them  for  their  fanatical  behaviour,"  as  he  termed  it,  told  them,  as 
they  were  so  fond  of  teaching  religious  and  moral  duties,  a  suita- 
ble situation  had  been  provided  for  them  in  Cayenne  ;  where  the 
negroes  stood  sadly  in  need  of  their  early  arrival,  for  which  reason 
they  would  all  set  out  on  that  very  morning  for  Rochefort.  When 
Gouron  asked  what  was  become  of  his  property,  furniture,  Sec.  he 
'was  told  that  his  house  was  intended  by  government  for  a  prepa- 
ratory school,  and  would,  with  its  contents,  be  purchased,  and 
the  amount  paid  him  in  lands  in  Cayenne.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
say  that  this  example  of  Imperial  justice,  had  the  desired  effect 
on  all  other  refractory  private  schoolmasters. 

The  parents  of  Gouron's  pupils,  have,  with  a  severe  repri- 
mand, been  informed  where  their  sons  had  been  placed,  and 
where  they  would  be  educated  in  a  manner  agreeable  to  the 
Emperor,  who  recommended  them  not  to  remove  thi:m,  without 
a  previous  notice  to  the  police.  A  hatter  of  the  name  of  Maille, 
however,  ordered  his  son  home,  because  he  had  been  sent  to  a 
dearer  school  than  the  former.  In  his  turn  he  was  carried  be- 
fore the  police,  and  after  a  short  examination  of  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  was  permitted  with  his  wife  and  two  children,  to  join  their 


398  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

friend  Gouron  at  Rochefort,  and  to  settle  with  him  at  Cayenne, 
where  lands  would  also  be  given  him  for  his  property  in  France. 
These  particulars  were  related  to  me  by  a  neighbour,  whose  son 
had  for  two  years  previous  to  this,  been  under  Gouron's  care,  but 
who  was  now  among  those  placed  out  by  our  government.  The 
boy's  present  master,  he  said,  was  a  man  of  a  notoriously  bad  and 
immoral  character;  but  he  was  intimidated,  and  weak  enough  to 
remain  contented,  preferring,  no  doubt,  his  personal  safety  to  the 
future  happiness  of  his  child.  In  your  country,  you  little  compre- 
hend what  a  -valuable  instrument  terror  has  been  in  the  hands  of 
our  rulers  since  the  revolution,  and  how  often  fear  Iras  been  mis- 
taken abroad  for  affection  and  content. 

All  these  minutiz  and  petty  vexations,  but  great  oppressions 
of  petty  tyrants,  you  may  easily  guess,  take  up  a  great  deal  of 
time,  and  that,  therefore,  a  minister  of  police,  though  the  most 
powerful,  is  also  the  most  occupied  of  his 'colleagues.  So  he  cer- 
tainly is,  but  last  year,  a  new  organization  of  this  ministry  was 
regulated  by  Buonaparte  ;  and  Fouche  was  allowed,  as  assistants, 
four  counsellors  of  state,  and  an  augmentation  of  sixty- four  police 
commissaries.  The  French  empire  was  then  divided  into  four 
arrondissements,  with  regard  to  the  general  police  ;  not  including 
Paris  and  its  vicinity,  inspected  by  a  prefect  of  police  under  the 
minister.  Of  the  first  of  these  arrondissements^  the  counsellor  of 
state  Real,  is  a  kind  of  deputy  minister  ;  the  counsellor  of  state 
Miot,  is  the  same  of  the  second  ;  the  counsellor  of  state  Pelet  de 
la  Lozere,  of  the  third  ;  and  the  counsellor  of  state  Dauchy,  of 
the  fourth.  The  secret  police  agents,  formerly  called  sfiiee,  were 
also  considerably  increased. 


LETTER  LXVIII. 

Paris,  October  IS 05. 

MY   LORD, 

BEFORE  Buonaparte  sat  out  for  the  Rhine,  the  Pope's  Nun- 
cio was,  for  Ihejirst  time,  publickly  rebuked  by  him,  in  Madame 
Buonaparte's  drawing-room,  and  ordered  loudly  to  write  to  Rome, 
and  tell  his  Holiness  to  think  himself  fortunate  in  continuing  to 
govern  the  Ecclesiastical  States,  without  interfering  with  the  ec- 
clesiastical arrangements  that  might  be  thought  necessary  or 
proper  by  the  government  in  France 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  -299 

Buonaparte's  policy  is  to  promote  among-  the  first  dignitaries  > 
of  the  Gallican  Church,  the  brothers  or  relatives  of  his  civil  or 
military  supporters.  Cambaceres's  brother  is  therefore  an  arch- 
bishop and  cardinal,  and  one  of  Le  Brun's,  and  two  of  Berthier's 
cousins  are  bishops.  As,  however,  the  relatives  of  these  sena- 
tors, ministers,  or  generals,  have,  like  themselves,  figured  in  ma- 
ny of  the  scandalous  and  blasphemous  scenes  of  the  Revolution, 
the  Pope  has  sometimes  hesitated  about  sanctioning  their  pro- 
motions. This  was  the  case  last  summer,  when  General  Des- 
soles's  brother  was  transferred  from  the  bishoprick  of  Digne  to 
that  of  Chamberry,  and  Buonaparte  nominated  for  his  successor 
the  brother  of  General  Miollis,  who  was  a  curate  of  Brignolles, 
in  the  diocese  of  Atx.  Tins  curate  had  not  only  been  one  of  the 
first  to  throw  up  his  letters  of  priesthood  at  the  Jacobin  Club  at 
Aix,  but  had  also  sacrilegiously  denied  the  divinity  of  the  Chris- 
tian Religion,  and  proposed,  in  imitation  of  the  Parisian  atheists, 
the  worship  of  a  Goddess  of  Reason  in  a  common  prostitute  with 
•whom  he  lived.  The  notoriety  of  these  abominations  made  even 
his  parishioners  at  Brignoiles  unwilling  to  go  to  church,  and  to 
regard  him  as  their  pastor,  though  several  of  them  had  been  im- 
prisoned, fined,  and  even  transported  as  fanatics,  or  as  refractory. 

During  the  negotiation  with  Cardinal  Fesch  last  year,  the  Pope 
had  been  promised,  among  other  things,  that,  for  the  future,  his 
conscience  should  not  be  wounded  by  having  presented  to  him 
for  the  prelacy  any  person  but  those  of  the  purest  morals  of  the 
French  empire  ;  and  that  all  his  objections  should  be  attended  to, 
in  case  of  promotions  ;  his  scruples  removed,  or  his  refusal  sub- 
mitted to.  When  Cardinal  Fesch  demanded  his  Holiness's  Bull 
for  the  curate  Miollis,  the  Cardinal  secretary  of  state  Gonsalvi, 
showed  no  less  than  twenty  acts  of  apostacy  and  blasphemy, 
which  made  him  unworthy  of  such  a  dignity.  To  this  was  re- 
plied that,  having  obtained  an  indulgence  in  toto  for  what  was 
past,  he  was  a  proper  subject ;  above  all,  as  he  had  the  protection 
of  the  Emperor  of  the  French.  The  Pope's  Nuncio  here  then 
addressed  himself  to  our  minister  of  the  ecclesiastical  depart- 
ment, Portalis,  who  advised  him  not  to  speak  to  Buonaparte  of  a 
matter  upon  which  his  mind  had  been  made  up  :  he  nevertheless 
demanded  an  audience,  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  this  request 
that  he,  in  his  turn,  became  acquainted  with  the  ne\v  Imperial  cti- 


300  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

quettc,  and  new  Imperial  jargon  towards  the  representative  of 
sovereigns.  On  the  same  evening,  the  Nuncio  expedited  a  cou- 
rier to  Rome,  and  I  have^heard  to-day,  that  the  nomination  of  Mi- 
ollis  is  confirmed  by  the  Pope* 

From  this  relatively  trifling  occurrence,  his  Holiness  might 
judge  of  the  intention  of  our  government,  to  adhere  to  its  other 
engagements  ;  but  at  Rome,  as  well  as  in  most  other  continental 
capitals,  the  sovereign  is  the  dupe  of  the  perversity  of  his  counsel- 
lors and  ministers,  who  are  the  tools,  and  not  seldom  the  pension- 
ers, of  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud. 

But,  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  the  parish  and  dioceses  are,  if 
possible,  still  worse  served  than  in  ti.is  country.  Some  of  the 
bishops  there,  after  having  done  duty  in  the  national  guards,  ^vorn 
the  jacobin  cap,  and  fought  against  their  lawful  Prince,  now  live 
in  open  adultery;  and,  from  their  intrigues,  are  the  terror  of  all 
the  married  part  of  their  flock.  The  Bishop  of  Pavia  keeps  the 
•wife  of  a  merchant,  by  whom  he  has  two  children  ;  and,  that  the 
public  may  not  be  mistaken  as  to  their  real  father,  the  merchant 
received  a  sum  of  money  to  establish  himself  at  Brescia,  and  has 
ivot  seen  his  wife  for  these  two  years  past.  General  Gourion,who 
was  last  spring  in  Italy,  has  assured  me  that  he  read  the  adver- 
tisement of  a  curate  for  his  concubine,  who  had  eloped  with  an- 
other curate;  and  that  the  police  minister  at  Milan  openly  licens- 
ed women  to  be  the  hQuac-kwJierts  of  priests. 

A  grand  vicar,  Sailni,  at  Bologna,  was  in  1796,  a  friar,  but  re- 
linquished then  the  convent  for  the  tent,  and  exchanged  the  bre- 
viary for  the  musket.  He  married  a  nun  of  one  cloister,  from 
whom  he  procured  a  divorce  in  a  month,  to  unite  himself  with 
an  abbess  of  another,  deserted  by  him  in  her  turn,  for  the  wife 
of  an  inn-keeper,  who  robbed  and  eloped  from  her  husband. — 
Last  spring  he  returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  chinch  ;  and  by 
making  our  Empress  a  present  of  a  valuable  diamond  cross,  of 
which  he  had  pillaged  the  statue  of  a  Madonna,  he  obtained  the 
dignity  of  a  grand  \icar,  to  the  grand  edification,  no  doubt,  of  all 
those  who  had  seen  him  before  the  altar,  or  in  the  camp  ; .  at  the 
brothel,  or  in  the  hospital. 

Another  grand  vicar  of  the  same  bishop,  in  the  same  city,  of 
the  name  of  Kami,  has  two  of  his  illegitimate  children  as  sing- 
ing boys,  in  the  same  cathedral  where  he  officiates  as  a  priest. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  301 

Their  mother  is  dead,  but  her  daughter  by  another  priest,  is  now 
their  father's  mistress.  This  incestuous  commerce  is  so  little 
concealed,  that  the  girl  does  the  honours  of  the  grand  vicar's 
house  ;  and  with  naivete  enough,  tells  the  guests  and  visitors  of 
her  hajijiiness,  in  having  succeeded  her  mother.  I  have  this 
anecdote  from  an  officer^  who  heard  her  make  use  of  that  ex- 
pression. 

In  France,  our  priests,  I  fear,  are  equally  as  debauched  and 
unprincipled  ;  but,  in  yielding  to  their  vicious  propensities,  they 
take  care  to  save  the  appearance  of  virtue,  and  though  their  guilt 
is  the  same,  the  scandal  is  less.  Buonaparte  pretends  to  be  se 
vere  against  all  those  ecclesiastics  who  are  accused  of  any  irregu- 
larities, after  having  made  their  peace  with  the  church.  A  cu- 
rate of  Picardy,  suspected  of  gallantry,  and  another  of  Normandy, 
accused  of  inebriety,  were  last  month,  without  further  trial  or  ce- 
remony, than  the  report  of  the  minister  Portalis,  delivered  over 
to  Fouche,  who  transported  them  to  Cayenne,  after  they  had  been 
stripped  of  their  gowns.  At  the  same  time,  Cardinal  Cambaceres 
and  Cardinal  Fesch  equally  notorious  for  their  excesses,  were  ta- 
ken no  notice  of,  except  that  they  were  laughed  at  in  our  court- 
circles. 

I  am  almost  every  day,  more  and  more  convinced  that  our  go- 
vernment is  totally  indifferent  about  what  becomes  of  our  religious 
establishment,  when  the  present  race  of  priests  is  extinguished, 
which,  in  the  course  of  nature  must  happen  in  less  than  thirty 
years.  Our  military  system  and  our  military  education  discou- 
rage all  young  men  from  entering  into  orders,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  the  army  is  both  more  honourable  and  more  profitable 
than  the  church.  Already  we  want  curates,  though  several  have 
been  imported  from  Germany  and  Spain,  and,  in  some  depart- 
ments, four  and  even  six  parishes  have  only  one  curate  to  serve 
them  all.  The  bishops  exhort,  and  the  parents  advise  their 
children  to  study  theology ;  but  then  the  law  of  conscription 
obliges  the  student  of  theology,  as  well  as  the  student  of  philoso- 
phy, to  march  together  ;  and  when  once  in  the  ranks,  and  accus- 
tomed to  the  licentiousness  of  a  military  life,  they  are  either  un- 
willing, unfit,  or  unworthy  to  return  to  any  thing  else.  The  . 
Pope,  with- all -his,  enitr.eaties,  and  with  all  his  prayers,  wasuna 

DC! 


303  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  r 

ble  to  procure  an  exception  from  the  conscription  of  young  men 
preparing  themselves  for  priesthood.  Buonaparte  always  an- 
swered :  "  Holy  Father,  were  I  to  consent  to  your  demand,  I 
should  soon  have  an  army  of  priests,  instead  of  an  army  of  sol- 
diers." Our  Emperor  is  not  unacquainted  with  the  real  charac- 
ter and  spirit  of  his  Volunteers.  When  the  Pope  represented  the 
danger  of  religion  expiring  in  France,  for  want  of  priests  to  offi- 
ciate at  the  altars  ;  he  was  answered,  that  Buonaparte,  at  the 
beginning  of  his  consulate,  found  neither  altars  nor  priests  in 
France  ;  that  if  his  reign  survived  the  latter,  the  former  would 
always  be  standing,  and  survive  his  reign.  He  trusted  that  the 
chief  of  the  Church  would  prevent  them  from  being  deserted. 
He  assured  him,  that  when  once  he  had  restored  the  liberties  of 
the  seas,  and  an  uninterrupted  tranquillity  on  the  Continent,  he 
should  attend  more,  and  perhaps  entirely,  to  the  affairs  of  the 
Church.  He  consented,  however,  that  the  Pope  might  institute, 
in  the  Ecclesiastical  States,  a  seminary  for  two  hundred  young 
Frenchmen,  whom  he  would  except  from  military  conscription. 
This  is  the  stock  from  which  our  church  establishment  is  to  be 
supplied  ! 


LETTER  LXIX. 

Paris-)  October,  1805. 
MY  LORD, 

THE  short  journey  of  Cdiirit  cle  HaUgwitz  to  Vienna)  and 
the  long  stay  of  our  Imperial  Grand  Marshal  Duroc  at  Berlin* 
had  already  caused  here  many  speculations,  not  quite  correspon- 
ding with  the  views,  and  perhaps  interests  of  our  Court ;  when 
our  violation  of  the  Prussian  territory  made  our  courtiers  exclaim, 
"  this  act  proves  that  the  Emperor  of  the  French  is  in  a  situa- 
tion to  bid  defiance  to  all  the  world,  and  therefore  no  longer 
courts  the  neutrality  of  a  Prince,  whose  power  is  merely  artificial ; 
who  has  indemnities  to  restore,  but  no  delicacy,  no  regard  to 
claims."  Such  was  the  language  of  those  very  men,  who,  a 
month  before,  declared  "  that  his  Prussian  Majesty  held  the 
balance  of  peace  or  war  in  his  hands  ;  that  he  was  in  a  posi- 
tion in  which  no  Prussian  monarch  ever  was  before  ;  that 
his  neutrality  preserved  the  tranquillity  of  the  North  oC 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  303 

Germany,  the  South  of  Europe  would  soon  be  indebted  to  his 
powerful  mediation  for  the  return  of  peace." 

The  real  cause  of  this  alteration  in  our  courtiers'  political  jar- 
gon, has  not  yet  been  known  :  but,  I  think  it  may  easily  be 
discovered  without  any  official  publication.  Buonaparte  had  the 
adroitness  to  cajole  the  Cabinet  of  Berlin  into  his  interest,  in 
the  first  month  of  his  consulate,  notwithstanding  his  own  cri- 
tical situation,  as  well  as  the  critical  situation  of  France ;  and 
he  has  ev-jr  since  taken  care  both  to  attach  it  to  his  triumphal 
car,  and  to  inculpate  it  directly  in  his  outrages  and  violations.-— 
Convinced,  as  he  thought,  of  the  selfishness  which  guided  all 
its  resolutions,  all  his  attacks  and  invasions  against  the  law  of 
nations,  or  independence  of  states,  were  either  preceded  or  fol- 
lowed with  some  offers  of  aggrandizement,  of  indemnity,  of  sub- 
sidy, or  of  alliance.  His  political  intriguers  were  generally  more 
successful  in  Prussia  than  his  military  heroes  in  crossing  the 
Rhine,  or  the  Elbe,  in  laying  the  llanse  Towns  under  contri- 
bution, or  in  occupying  Hanover  ;  or  rather  all  these  acts  of 
Tiolence  and  injustice  were  merely  the  effects  of  his  ascendancy 
in  Prussia.  When  it  is  besides  remembered,  what  provinces 
Prussia  accepted  from  his  bounty,  what  exchange  of  presents,  of 
ribands,  of  private  letters  passed  between  Napoleone  the  First, 
and  Frederick  William  III.  between  the  Empress  of  the  French 
and  -the  Queen  of  Prussia,  it  is  not  surprising  if  the  Cabinet  of 
St.  Cloud  thought  itself  sure  of  the  submission  of  the  Cabinet  of 
Berlin,  and  did  not  esteem  it  enough  to  fear  it;  or  to  think  that 
it  would  have  spirit  enough  to  resent,  or  even  honour  to  feel  the 
numerous  provocations  offered. 

Whatever  Buonaparte  and  Talleyrand  write  or  assert  to  the 
contrary,  their  gifts  are  only  wages  of  their  contempt,  and  they 
despise  more  that  state  they  thus  reward,  than  those  nations,  at 
whose  expense  they  are  liberal,  and  with  whose  spoil  they  de- 
lude selfishness  or  meanness  into  their  snares.  The  more  legiti- 
mate !  sovereigns  descend  from  their  true  dignity,  and  a  liberal 
policy,  the  nearer  they  approach  the  baseness  of  usurpation,  and 
the  Machiavelism  of  rebellion.  Like  other  upstarts,  they  never 
suffer  an  equal.  If  you  do  not  keep  yourself  above  them,  they 
will  crush  you  beneath  them.  If  they  have  no  reason  to  fear: 
youjthey  will  create  some  quarrel  to  destroy  you. 


•J04  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

It  is  said  here,  that  Durcc's  journey  to  Berlin  was  merely  tt> 
demand  a  passage  for  the  French  troops  through  the  Prussian 
territory  in  Franconia,  and  to  present  the  Russian  troops  from 
passing  through  the  Prussian  territory  in  Poland.  This  request  is 
such  as  might  have  been  expected  from  our  Emperor  and  his  mi- 
nister. Whether,  however,  the  tone  in  which  this  curious  negotia- 
tion with  a  neutral  power  was  began,  or  that,  at  last,  the  generosity 
of  the  Russian  monarch,  awakened  a  sense  of  duty  in  the  Cabi- 
net of  Berlin,  the  arrival  of  our  pacific  envoy  was  immediately 
followed  with  warlike  preparations.  .Fortunate,  indeed,  was  it 
for  Prussia  to  have  resorted  to  her  military  strength,  instead  of 
trusting  any  longer  to  our  friendly  assurances.  The  disasters 
that  have  since  befallen  the  Austrian  armies  in  Suabia,  .partly 
occasioned  by  our  forced  marches  through  neutral  Prussia, 
would  otherwise  soon  have  been  felt  in  Westphalia,  in  Branden- 
burg, and  in  Pomerania.  But  should  his  Prussian  Majesty  not 
order  his  troops  to  act  in  conjunction  with  Russia,  Austria,  Eng- 
land, and  Sweden,  and  that  -very  soon,  all  efforts  against  Buona- 
parte will  be  vain  ;  as  those  troops  which  have  dispersed  the 
Austrians,  and  repulsed  the  Russians,  will  be  more  than  equal  to 
master  the  Prussians  ;  and  one  campaign  may  be  sufficient  to 
convince  the  Prussian  ministers  of  their  folly  and  errors  for  years, 
;\nd  to  punish  them  for  their  ignorance  or  selfishness. 

Some  preparations  made  in  silence  by  the  Marquis  de  Luc- 
chesini;  his  affected  absence  from  some  of  our  late  court  circles, 
and  the  number  of  spies  who  now  are  watching  his  hotel  and  his 
steps,  seem  to  indicate,  that  Prussia  istiredofitsimpolitic  neutrality, 
and  inclined  to  join  the  confederacy  against  France.  At  the  last 
assembly,  at  our  Prince  Cambaceres's,  a  rumour  circulated,  that 
preliminary  articles  for  an  offensive  alliance  with  your  country, 
had  already  been  signed  by  the  Prussian  minister,  Baron  Har- 
denberg,  on  one  side,  and  by  your  minister  to  the  Court  of  Ber- 
lin .  on  the  other ;  according  to  which,  you  were  to  take  sixty 
thousand  Prussians,  and  twelve  thousand  Hessians  into  your  pay, 
for  five  years  certain.  A  courier  from  Duroc,  was  said  to  have 
brought  this  news,  which  at  first  made  some  impression,  but  it 
wore  away  by  degrees ;  and  our  government,  to  judge  from  the 
expressions  of  persons  in  its  confidence,  seems  more  to  court, 
than  to  fear,  a  rupture  with  Prussia.  Indeed,  besides  all  othrv 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  305 

reasons  to  carry  on  a  war  in  the  North  of  Europe,  Buonaparte's 
numerous  new  and  young  generals  are  impatient  to  enrich  them- 
selves ;  and  Italy,  Switzerland,  Holland,  and  the  South  of  Ger- 
many, are  almost  exhausted, 


LETTER  LXX. 

Paris,- October,  1805. 

MY    LORD, 

THE  provocations  of  our  government  must  have  been  ex- 
traordinary, indeed,  when  they  were  able  to  awaken  the  Cabinet 
of  Berlin  from  its  long  and  incomprehensible  infatuation  of  trust- 
ing to  the  friendly  intentions  of  honest  Talleyrand,  and  to  the  dis- 
interested policy  of  our  gene rous  Buonaparte.  To  judge  its  in- 
tents from  its  acts,  the  favour  of  the  Cabinet  of  St.  Cloud  was 
not  only  its  wish  but  its  want.  You  must  remember,  that  last 
year,  besides  his  ordinary  ambassador,  Lucchesini,  his  Prussian 
Majesty  was  so  ill  advised  as  to  dispatch  a  General  Knobelsdorff 
as  his  extra  representative,  to  assist  at  Napoleone's  coronation  ;  a 
degradation  of  lawful  sovereignty,  to  which  even  the  Court  of 
Naples,  though  surrounded  with  our  troops,  refused  to  subscribe  ; 
and  so  late  as- last  June,  the  same  Knobelsdorff  did,  in  the  name 
of  his  Prince,  the  honours  at  the  reviews  near  Magdeburg,  to 
all  the  generals  of  our  army  in  Hanover,  who  chose  to  attend 
there.  On  this  occasion,  the  King  lodged  in  a  farm-house,  the 
Queen  in  the  house  of  the  curate  of  Koettlith,  while  our  sans-cu- 
lotte  officers,  Bernadotte  and  Co.  were  quartered  and  treated  in 
style,  at  the  castle  of  Putzbull,  fitted  up  for  their  accommoda- 
tion. This  was  certainly  very  hospitable,  and  very  civil,  but  it 
was  neither  prudent  nor  polite.  Upstarts  experiencing  such  a 
reception  from  Princes,  are  convinced  that  they  are  dreaded,  be- 
cause they  know  that  they  have  not  merited  to  be  esteemed. 

Do  not  confound  this  Knobelsdorff  with  the  late  field-marshal 
of  that  name,  who,  in  1796,  answered  to  a  request  which  our 
then  ambassador  at  Berlin,  Abbe  Sieyes,  had  made  to  be  intro- 
duced to  him,  NON  ET  SANS  PHRASE,  the  very  words  this  regicide 
used  when  he  sat  in  judgment  on  his  king,  and  voted  LA  MORT 
ET  SANS  PHRASE.  This  Knobelsdorff  is  a  very  different  charac- 
ter. He  pretends  to  be  equally  conspicuous  in  the  cabinet- as  io 

Dd  2 


SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  field  ;  in  the  boudoir,  as  in  the  study.  A  derm-philosopher? 
a  demi-savam,  a  demi-gallant,  and  a  demi-politician,  constitute, 
all  taken  together,  nothing,  except  an  insignificant  courtier.  I 
do  not  know  whether  he  was  among  those  Prussian  officers  who, 
in  1798,  CRIED,  when  it  was  inserted  in  the  public  prints,  that 
the  Grand  Buonaparte  had  been  killed  in  an  insurrection  at  Cai- 
ro ;  but  of  this  I  am  certain,  that  were  Knobelsclorff  to  survive 
Napoleone  the  First,  none  of  his  Imperial  Majesty's  own  dutiful 
subjects  would  mourn  him  more  sincerely  than  this  subject  of  the 
King  of  Prussia.  He  is  said  to  possess  a  great  share  of  the  con- 
ndence  of  his  King,  who  has  already  employed  him  in  several 
diplomatic  missions.  The  principal  and  most  requisite  qualities 
in  a  negotiator  are,  political  information,  inviolable  fidelity,  a  pe- 
netrating but  unbiassed  judgment,  a  dignified  firmness,  and  con- 
descending manners.  I  have  not  been  often  enough  in  the  soci- 
ety of  General  Knobelsdorff  to  assert  whether  nature  and  educa- 
tion have  destined  him  to  illumine,  or  to  cloud  the  Prussian  mo- 
narchy. 

I  have  already  mentioned,  in  a  former  letter,  that  it  was 
Count  de  Haugwitz  who,  in  1792,  as  Prussian  ambassador  at  Vi- 
enna, arranged  the  treaty  which  then  united  the  Austrian  and 
Prussian  Eagles  against  the  Jacobin  Cap  of  Liberty  ;  it  is  now 
said  in  our  diplomatic  circle,  that  his  second  mission  to  the  same 
capital  has  for  an  object  the  renewal  of  these  ties,  which  the 
treaty  of  Basle  dissolved  ;  and  that  our  government,  to  impede 
his  success,  or  to  occasion  his  recall,  before  he  could  ha\e  time 
to  conclude,  had  proposed  to  Prussia  an  annual  subsidy  of  thirty 
millions  of  livres,  1,250,000/.  which  it  intended  to  exact  from  Por- 
tugal far  its  neutrality.  The  present  respectable  appearance  of 
Prussia  shows,  however,  that  whether  the  mission  of  Haugwitz 
had  the  desired  issue  or  not,  his  Prussian  Majesty  confides  in  his 
army  in  preference  to  our  parchments. 

Some  of  our  politicians  pretend,  that  the  present  minister  of 
the  foreign  department  in  Prussia,  Baron  de  Hardenberg,  is  not 
such  a  friend  of  the  system  of  neutrajity  as  his  predecessor.  All 
the  transactions  of  his  administration  seem,  nevertheless,  to  pro- 
claim, that  if  he  wished  his  country  to  take  an  active  part  in  the 
present  conflict,  it  would  not  have  been  against  France,  had  she 
not  began  the  attack  with  the  invasion  of  Anspach  and  Bareutlu 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

.* 

Let  it  be  recollected  that,  since  his  ministry,  Prussia  has  acknow- 
ledged Buonaparte  an  Emperor  of  the  French,  has  exchanged  or- 
ders with  him,  and  has  sent  an  extraordinary  ambassador  to  be 
present  at  his  coronation — not  common  compliments  even  be- 
tween Princes  connected  by  the  nearest  ties  of  friendship  and 
consanguinity.  Under  his  administration,  the  Rhine  has  been 
passed  to  seize  the  Duke  d'Enghien  ;  and  the  Elbe,  to  capture 
Sir  George  Rumbold  ;  the  Hanse  Towns  have  been  piKaged, 
and  even  Embden  blockaded  ;  and  the  representations  against  all 
these  outrages  have  neither  been  followed  by  public  reparation, 
or  a  becoming  resentment :  and  was  it  not  also  .Baron  de  Har- 
denbsrg  who,  on  the  5th  of  April,  1796,  concluded  at  Basle  that 
treaty  to  which  we  owe  all  our  conquests,  and  Germany  and  Italy 
all  their  disasters  ?  It  is  not  probable  that  the  parent  of  pacifica- 
tion will  destroy  its  own  progeny,  if  self-preservation  does  not  re- 
quire it. 

Baron  de  Plardenberg  is  both  a  learned  nobleman  and  an  en- 
lightened statesman,  and  does  equal  honour  both  to  his  own  rank 
and  to  the  choice  of  his  Prince.  The  late  Frederic  William  II. 
nominated  him  a  minister  of  state,  and  a  counsellor  of  his  cabi- 
net. On  the  26th  of  January,  1792,  as  directorial  minister,  he 
took  possession,  in  the  name  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  of  the  Mar- 
gravates  of  Anspach  and  Bareuth,  and  the  inhabitants  swore  be- 
fore him,  as  their  governor,  their  oaths.of  allegiance  to  their  new 
Sovereign.  He  continued  to  reside,  as  a  kind  of  viceroy,  in  these 
states,  until  March,  1795,  when  he  replaced  Baron  de  Goltz  as 
negotiator  with  our  republican  plenipotentiary  in  Switzerland  ; 
but  after  settling  all  differences  between  Prussia  and  France,  he 
returned  to  his  former  post  at  Anspach,  where  no  complaints  have 
been  heard  against  his  government. 

The  ambition  of  Baron  de  Hardenberg  has  always  been  to  ob- 
tain the  place  he  now  occupies,  and  the  study  of  his  life  has  been 
to  gain  such  information  as  would  enable  him  to  fill  it  with  dis- 
tinction. I  have  heard  it  said  that  in  most  countries  he  had  for 
years  kept  and  paid  private  agents,  who  regularly  corresponded 
with  him,  and  sent  him  reports  of  what  they  heard  or  saw  of  poli- 
tical intrigue  or  machinations.  One  of  these,  his  agents,  I  hap- 
pened to  meet  with,  in  1796,  at  Basle,  and  were  I  to  conclude 
from  what  I  observed  in  him,  the  minister  has  not  been  very  ju- 


SOS  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

uicious  in  his  selection  of  private  correspondents. ,  Figure  to 
yourself  a  bald-headed  personage,  about  forty  years  of  age,  near 
seven  feet  high,  deaf  as  a  post,  stammering  and  making  convul- 
sive efforts  to  express  a  sentence  of  five  words,  which,  after  allf 
his  gibberish  made  unintelligible.  His  dress  was  as  eccentric  as 
his  person  was  singular,  and  his  manners  corresponded  with  both. 
He  called  himself  Baron  de  Bulow,  and  I  saw  him  afterwards,  in 
the  autumn  of  17(J7,  at  Paris,  with  the  same  accoutrements,  and 
the  same  jargon,  assuming  an  air  of  diplomatic  mystery,  even- 
while  displaying  before  me,  in  a  coffee-house,  his  letters  and  in- 
structions from  his  principal.  As  might  be  expected,  he  had  the 
adroitness  to  get  himself  shut  up  in  the  Temple,  where,  I  have 
been  told,  the  generosity  of  your  Sir  Sidney  Smith  prevented 
him  from  starving. 

No  member  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps  here  possesses 
either  more  knowledge,  or  a  longer  experience,  than  the  Prus- 
sian ambassador,  Marquis  de  Lucchesini.  He  went  with  several 
other  jihihaofthers  of  Italy,  to  admire  the  late  hero  of  modern  phi- 
losophy, Frederic  the  Great,  who  received  him  well,  caressed 
liim  often,  but  never  trusted  or  employed  him.  I  suppose  it  was 
at  the  mention  of  the  Marquis's  name,  for  the  place  of  a  governor 
of  some  province,  that  this  monarch  said,  "  My  subjects  of  that 
province  have  always  been  dutiful  ;  a  philosopher  shall  never 
rule  in  my  name,  but  over  people  with  whom  I  am  discontented, 
or  whom  I  intend  to  chastise."  This  piince  was  not  unacquaint- 
ed with  the  morality  of  his  sectaries. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  life  of  this  king,,  the  Marquis  de 
Lucchesini  was  frequently  of  his  literary  and  convivial  parties  ; 
but  he  was  neither  his  friend  nor  his  favourite,  but  his  listener. 
It  was  first  under  Frederic  William  II.  that  he  began  his  diplo- 
matic career,  with  an  appointment  as  minister  from  Prussia  to 
the  late  king  of  Poland.  His  first  act,  in  this  post,  was  a  treaty 
signed  on  the  29th  March,  1790,  with  the  King  and  Republic  of 
Poland, which  changed  an  elective  monarchy  into  a  hereditary 
one  ;  but  notwithstanding  the  Cabinet  of  Berlin  had  guaranteed 
this  alteration,  and  the  constitution  decreed  in  consequence,  in 
1791  ;  three  years  afterwards,  Russian  and  Prussian  bayonets 
annihilated  both,  and  selfishness  banished  faith. 
s  In  July,  1790,  he  assisted  as  a  Prussian  plenipotentiary  at  the 
Conferences  at  Reichenbach,  together  with  the  English  and 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  309 

Dutch  ambassadors,  having  for  object  a  pacification  between  Au- 
stria and  Turkey.  In  December  of  the  same  year,  he  went  with 
the  same  ministers  to  the  Congress  at  Sistow,  where,  in  May, 
1791,  he  signed  the  treaty  of  peace  between  the  Grand  Seignior 
and  the  Emperor  of  Germany.  In  June,  1792,  he  was  a  second 
time  sent  as  a  minister  to  Warsaw,  where  he  remained  until 
January,  1793,  when  he  was  promoted  to  the  post  of  an  ambassa- 
dor at  the  Court  of  Vienna.  He  continued,  however,  to  reside 
with  his  Prussian  Majesty  during  the  greatest  part  of  the  cam- 
paign on  the  Rhine,  and  signed,  on  the  24th  of  June>  1793,  in 
the  camp  before  Mentz,  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with 
your  Court ;  an  alliance  which  Prussian  policy  respected  not 
above  eighteen  months.  In  October  1796,  he  requested  his  recall ; 
but  this  his  sovereign  refused,  with  the  most  gracious  expres- 
sions ;  and  he  could  not  obtain  it  until  March,  1797.  Some  dis- 
approbation of  the  new  political  plan  introduced  by  Count  de 
Haugwitz,  in  the  Cabinet  at  Berlin  is  supposed  to  have  occasion- 
ed his  determination  to  retire  from  public  employment.  As  he, 
however,  continued  to  reside  in  the  capital  of  Prussia,  and,  as 
many  believed,  secretly  intrigued  to  appear  again  upon  the  scene, 
the  nomination  in  1 800  to  his  present  important  post  was  as  much 
the  consequence  of  his  own  desire  as  of  the  favour  of  his  King. 
The  Marquis  de  Lucchesini  lives  here  in  great  style,  at  the 
beautiful  hotel  de  I* Infantado,  where  his  lady's  routes,  assemblies, 
and  circles,  are  the  resort  of  our  most  fashionable  gentry.  Ma- 
dame de  Lucchesini  is  more  agreeable  than  handsome,  more  fit 
to  shine  at  Berlin  than  at  Paris  ;  for  though  her  manners  are 
elegant,  they  want  that  ease,  that  finish,  which  a  German  or  Ita- 
lian education  cannot  teach,  nor  a  German  or  Italian  society  con- 
fer. To  judge  from  the  number  of  her  admirers,  she  seems  to 
know  that  she  is  married  to  a  philosopher.  Her  husband  was 
born  at  Lucca  in  Italy,  and  is  therefore  at  present  ?.  subject  of 
Buonaparte's  brother-in-law,  Prince  Bacchiochi,  to  whom,  when 
his  Serene  Highness  was  a  marker  at  a  billiard-table,  I  have  had 
the  honour  of  giving  many  a  shilling,  as  well  as  many  a  box  on 
the  ear, 


3-10  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

LETTER  LXXI. 

Paris ,    October,    1805.. 

MY   LORD, 

THE -unexampled  cruelty  of  our  government  to  your  country- 
man, Captain  Wright,  I  have  heard  reprobated  even  by  some  of 
our  generals  and  public  functionaries,  as  unjust  as  well  as  dis- 
graceful. At  a  future  General  Congress,  should  ever  Buona- 
parte suffer  one  to  be  convoked,  except  under  his  auspices  and 
dictature,  the  distinction  and  treatment  of  prisoners  of  war  re- 
quire to  be  again  regulated  ;  that  the  valiant  warrior  may  not  for 
the  future  be  confounded  vith,  and  treated  as  a  treacherous  spy, 
nor  innocent  travellers  provided  with  regular  passes,  visiting  a 
country  either  for  business  or  for  pleasure,  be  imprisoned,  like 
men  taken  while  combating  with  arms  in  their  hand*. 

You  remember,  no  doubt,  from  history,  that  many  of  our  ships, 
during  the  reigns  of  George  the  First  and  Second,  carried  to 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  landed  there,  the  adherents  and  parti- 
sans of  the  House  of  Stuart,  and  were  captured  on  their  return 
or  on  their  passage  j  and  that  your  government  never  seized  the 
commanders  of  these  vessels,  to  confine  them  as  state  criminals, 
and  much  less  to  torture  or  murder  them  in  the  Tower.  If  I 
am  not  mistaken,  the  whole  squadron  which,  in  1745,  carried  the 
Pretender  and  his  suite  to  Scotland,  was  taken  by  your  cruisers  ; 
and  the  officers  and  men  experienced  no  worse  or  different  treat- 
ment than  their  fellow  prisoners  of  war  ;  though  the  distance  is 
immense  between  the  crime  of  plotting  against  the  lawful  go- 
vernment of  the  Princes  of  the  House  of  Brunswick,  and  the  at- 
tempt to  disturb  the  usurpation  of  an  upstart  of  the  House  of 
Buonaparte.  But  even  during  the  last  war,  how  many  of  our 
ships  of  the  line,  frigates  and  cutters,  did  you  not  take,  which 
had  landed  rebels  in  Ireland,  emissaries  in  Scotland,  and  male- 
factors in  Wales  ;  and  yet  your  generosity  prevented  you  from 
retaliating,  even  at  the  time  when  your  Sir  Sidney  Smith  and 
this  same  unfortunate  Captain  Wright  were  confined  in  our  state 
prison  of  the  Temple  !  It  is  with  governments  as  individuals ; 
they  ought  to  be  just  before  they  are  generous.  Had  you  in 
1797,  or  1798,  not  endured  our  outrages  so  patiently,  you  would 
not  now  have  to  lament,  nor  we  to  blush  for,  the  untimely  end  of 
Captain  Wright 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  3H 

from  the  last  time  that  this  officer  had  appeared  before  the 
criminal  tribunal  which  condemned  Georges  and  Moreau,  his 
fate  \yas  determined  on  by  our  government.  His  firmness  of- 
fended, and  his  patriotism  displeased  ;  and  as  he  seemed  to  pos- 
sess the  confidence  of  his  own  government,  it  was  judged  that 
he  was  in  its  secrets  ;  it  was  therefore  resolved,  that  if  he  re^- 
fused  to  become  a  traitor,  he  should  perish  a  victim.  Desma- 
rets,  Fouche's  private  secretary,  who  is  also  the  secretary  of  the 
secret  and  haute  police,  therefore  ordered  him  to  another  private 
interrogatory.  Here  he  was  offered  a  considerable  sum  of  mo- 
ney, and  the  rank  of  an  admiral  in  our  service,  if  he  would  divulge 
what  he  knew  of  the  plans  of  his  government,  of  its  connexions 
with  the  discontented  of  this  country,  and  of  its  means  of  keeping 
up  a  correspondence  with  them.  He  replied,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  with  indignation  to  such  offers  and  to  such  proposals  ; 
but  as  they  were  frequently  repeated,  with  new  allurements,  he 
concluded  with  remaining  silent,  and  giving  no  answer  at  all.  He 
was  then  told  that  the  torture  should  soon  restore  him  his  voice  ; 
and  some  select  gens-d'armes  seized  him,  and  laid  him  on  the 
rack  :  there  he  uttered  Yio  complaint,  not  even  a  sigh,  though  in- 
struments the  most  diabolical  were  employed,  and  pains  the  most 
acute  must  have  been  endured.  When  threatened  that  he  should 
expire  in  torments,  he  said,  "  I  do  not  fear  to  die,  because  my 
country  will  avenge  my  murder,  while  my  God  receives  my 
soul."  During  the  two  hours  of  the  first  day  that  he  was  stretch- 
ed on  the  rack,  his  left  arm  and  right  leg  were  broken,  and  his 
nails  torn  from  the  toes  of  both  his  feet ;  he  then  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  surgeon,  and  was  under  his  care  for  five  weeks,  but, 
before  he  was  perfectly  cured,  he  was  carried  to  another  private 
interrogatory,  at  which,  besides  Desmarets,  Fouche  and  Real 
were  present* 

This  minister  of  police  now  informed  him  that,  from  the  mu-- 
tilated  state  of  his  body,  and  from  the  sufferings  he  had  gone 
through,  he  must  be  convinced,  that  it  was  not  the  intention  of 
the  French  government  ever  to  restore  him  to  his  native  country, 
where  he  might  relate  occurrences  which  the  fiolicy  of  France 
required  to  be  buried  in  oblivion  ;  he,  therefore,  had  no  choice 
between  serving  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  or  perishing  within 
the  walls  of  the  prison  where  he  was  confined.  He  replied, 


312  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

that  he  was  resigned  to  his  destiny,  and  would  die  as  he  had  Uv'' 
ed,  faithful  to  his  King  and  to  his  country. 

The  man  in  the  full  possession  of  his  mental  qualities,  and  cor- 
poral strength,  is,  in  most  cases,  different  from  that  unfortunate 
being,  whose  mind  is  enervated  by  sufferings,  and  whose  body 
is  weakened  by  wants.  For  five  months,  Captain  Wright  had 
only  seen  gaolers,  spies,  tyrants,  executioners,  fetters,  racks,  and 
other  tortures  ;  and  for  five  weeks  his  food  had  been  bread,  and 
his  drink  water.  The  man  who,  thus  situated,  and  thus  per- 
plexed, preserves  his  native  dignity  and  innate  sentiments,  is 
more  worthy  of  monuments,  statues,  or  altars,  than  either  the 
legislator,  the  victor,  or  the  saint. 

This  interrogatory  was  the  last  undergone  by  Captain  Wright, 
He  was  then  again  stretched  on  the  rack  ;  and  what  is  ealled  by 
our  regenerators  the  INFERNAL  torments  were  inflicted  on  him. 
After  being  pinched  with  red  hot  irons,  all  over  his  body,  brandy 
mixed  with  gun-powder  was  infused  in  the  numerous  wounds, 
and  set  fire  to  several  times,  until  nearly  burned  to  the  bones. 
In  the  convulsions,  the  consequence  of  these  dreadful  sufferings, 
he  is  said  to  have  bit  oiT  a  part  of  his  'tongue  ;  though,  as  be- 
fore, no  groans  were  heard.  As  life  still  remained,  he  was  again 
put  under  the  care  of  his  former  surgeon  ;  but,  as  he  was  ex- 
hausted, a  spy,  in  the  dress  of  a  protestunt  clergyman,  presented 
himself;  as  if  to  read  prayers  with  him.  Of  this  offer  he  ac- 
cepted ;  but,  when  this  man  began  to  make  some  insidious  ques- 
tions, he  cast  on  him  a  look  of  contempt,  and  never  spoke  to  him 
more.  At  last,  seeing  no  means  to  obtain  any.  in  formation  from 
him,  a  Mameluke,  last  week,  strangled  him  in  his  bed.  Thus 
expired  a  hero,  whose  fate  has  excited  more  compassion,  and 
whose  character  has  received  more  admiration  here,  than  any  of 
our  great  men  who  have  fallen  fighting  for  our  Emperor.  Cap- 
tain Wright  has  diffused  new  rays  of  renown  and  glory  on  the 
British  name,  from  his  tomb,  as  well  as  from  his  dungeon. 

You  have  certainly  a  right  to  call  me  to  an  account  for  all  the 
particulars  I  have  related  of  this  scandalous  and  abominable 
transaction  ;  and  though  I  cannot  absolutely  guarantee  the 
truth  of  the  narration,  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  with  it  my  self,  and 
I  hope  to  explain  myself  to  your  satisfaction.  Your  unfortunate 
countryman  was  attended  by,  and  under  the  care  of  a  surgeon  of 


COURT  OF  ST,  CLOUT).  313 

4;he  name  of  Vaugcard,  who  gained  his  confidence,  and  was  wor- 
thy of  it,  though  employed  in  that  infamous  gaol.  Either  from 
disgust  of  life,  or  from  attachment  to  Captain  Wright,  he  surviv- 
ed him  only  'twelve  hours  ;  during  which,  he  wrote  the  shock- 
ing details  I  have  given  you,  and  sent  them  to  three  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps,  with  a  prayer  to  have  them 
forwarded  to  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  or  to  Mr.  Windham  ;  that  those 
his  friends  might  be  informed,  that,  to  his  last  moment,  Captain 
Wright  was  worthy  of  their  protection  and  kindness.  From  one 
of  those  ministers,  I  have  obtained  the  original,  in  Vaugeard*s 
own  hand  writing, 

I  know  that  Buonaparte  and  Talleyrand,  promised  the  release 
of  Captain  Wright  to  the  Spanish  ambassador ;  but  at  that  time, 
he  had  already  suffered  once  on  the  rack,  and  this. liberality  on 
their  part,  was  merely  a  trick  to  impose  upon  the  credulity  of  the 
Spaniard^  or  to  get  rid  of  his  importunities.  Had  it  been  other- 
wise, Captain  Wright,  like  Sir  George  Rumbold,  would  himself 
have  been  the  first  to  announce,  in  your  country,  the  recovery  of 
his  liberty. 


LETTER  LXXIL 

Paris,  October,  1805. 
MY  LORD, 

SHOULD  Buonaparte  again  return  here  victorious,  and  a  pa- 
cificator, great  changes  in  our  internal  government  and  constitu- 
tion are  expected,  and  will  certainly  occur*  Since  the  legisla- 
tive corps  has  completed  the  Napoleone  code  of  civil  and  crimi- 
nal justice,  it  is  considered  by  the  Emperor  notonly  as  useless,  but 
troublesome  and  superfluous.  For  the  same  reasons,  the  tribu- 
nate will  also  be  laid  aside,  and  his  Majesty  will  rule  the  French 
empire  with  the  assistance  of  his  senate,  and  with  the  advice  of 
his  council  of  state  exclusively.  You  know,  that  the  senators  as 
well  as  the  counsellors  of  state,  are  nominated  by  the  Emperor; 
that  he  changes  the  latter  according  to  his  whim ;  and  that 
though  the  former,  according  to  the  present  constitution,  are  to 
hold  their  offices  for  life,  the  alterations  which  remove  entirely 

E  e 


514  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  TH£ 

the  legislature,  and  the  tribunate,  may  also  make  senators  move- 
able.  But  as  all  members  of  the  senate  are  favourites  or  rela- 
tives, he  will  probably  not  think  it  necessary  to  resort  to  such  a 
measure  ot/iolicy. 

In  a  former  letter  I  have  already  mentioned  the  heteroge- 
neous composition  of  the  senate.  The  tribunate  and  legislative 
corps  are  worthy  to  figure  by  its  side.  Their  members  are  also 
ci-devant  mechanics  of  all  descriptions,  debased  attornies,  or  apos- 
tate priests,  national  spoilers,  or  rebellious  regicides,  degraded 
nobles,  or  dishonoured  officers.  The  nearly  unanimous  vote  of 
these  corps,  for  a  Consulate  for  life,  and  for  a  hereditary  Em- 
peror, cannot,  therefore,  either  be  expressive  of  the  national  will, 
or  constitute  the  legality  of  Buonaparte's  sovereignty. 

In  the  legislature  no  vote  opposed,  and  no  voice  declaimed 
against  Buonaparte's  Imperial  dignity ;  but,  in  the  tribunate. 
Carnot,  the  infamously  notorious  Carrot,  firo  forma,  and  with  the 
permission  of  the  Emperor  in  fietto^  spoke  against  the  return  of 
a  monarchical  form  of  government.  This  farce  of  deception  and 
roguery  did  not  impose  even  on  our  good  Parisians,  otherwise, 
and  so  frequently  the  dupes  of  all  our  political  and  revolutionary 
mountebanks.  Had  Carnot  expressed  a  sentiment,  or  used  a 
•word,  not  previously  approved  by  Buonaparte,  instead  of  reposing 
himself  in  the  tribunate,  he  would  have  been  wandering  in 
Cayenne. 

Son  of  an  obscure  attorney  at  Nolay  in  Burgundy,  he  was 
brought  up,  like  Buonaparte,  in  one  of  those  military  schools 
established  by  the  munificence  of  the  French  monarchs  ;  and  had 
obtained  from  the  late  King,  the  commission  of  a  captain  of  en- 
gineers, when  the  Revolution  broke  out.  He  was  particularly 
indebted  to  the  Prince  of  Conde  for  his  support  during  the  ear« 
Her  part  of  his  life  ;  and  yet  he  joined  the  enemies  of  his  House 
and  voted  for  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  A  member,  with  Robe- 
spierre and  Barrere,  of  the  committee  of  public  safety,  he  par- 
took of  their  power,  as  well  as  of  their  crimes  ;  though  he  has 
been  audacious  enough  to  deny  that  he  had  any  thing  to  do  with 
other  transactions  than  those  of  the  armies.  Were  no  other 
proofs  to  the  contrary  collected,  a  letter  of  his  own  hand  to  the 
ferocious  Lebon,  at  Arras,  is  a  written  evidence  which  he  is  un- 
able to  refute.  It  is  dated  November  16th,  1793.  «  You  must 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  315 

take,"  says  he,  "  in  your  energy,  all  measures  of  terror  com- 
manded or  required  by  present  circumstances.  Continue  your 
revolutionary  attitude  ;  never  mind  the  amnesty  pronounced 
with  the  acceptance  of  the  absurd  constitution  of  1791  : .  it  is  a 
crime  which  cannot  extenuate  other  crimes.  Antirrepublicans 
can  only  expiate  their  folly  under  the  axe  of  the  guillotine.  The 
public  treasure  will  always  pay  the  journies  and  expenses  of  in- 
formers, because  they  have  deserved  well  of  their  country.  Let 
all  suspected  traitors  expire  by  the  sword  or  by  fire  ;  continue  to 
march  upon  that  revolutionary  line  so  well  delineated  by  you. — 
The  committee  applauds  all  your  undertakings,  all  your  mea- 
sures of  vigour  ;  they  are  not  only  all  permitted,  but  commanded 
by  your  mission." Most  of  the  decrees  concerning  the  estab- 
lishments of  revolutionary  tribunals,  and  particularly  that  for  the 
organization  of  the  atrocious  military  commission  at  Orange, 
were  signed  by  him. 

Carnot,  as  an  officer  of  engineers,  certainly  is  not  without  tal- 
ents ;  but  his  presumption,  in  declaring  himself  the  sole  author 
ofthose  plans  of  campaigns,  which,  during  the  years  1794,  1795, 
and  1796,  were  so  triumphantly  executed  by  a  Pichegru,  Mc- 
reau,  and  Buonaparte,  is  impertinent,  as  well  as  unfounded.  At 
the  risk  of  his  own  life,  Pichegru  entirely  altered  the  plan  sent 
him  by  the  committee  of  public  safety ;  and  it  was  Moreau's 
masterly  retreat,  which  no  plan  of  campaign  could  prescribe, 
that  made  this  General  so  famous.  The  surprising  successes  of 
Buonaparte  in  Italy,  were  both  unexpected  and  unforeseen  by  the 
Directory  ;  and,  according  to  Berthier's  assertion,  obliged  the 
commander  in  chief,  during  the  first  four  months,  to  change  five 
times  his  plans  of  proceedings  and  undertakings. 

During  his  temporary  sovereignty  as  a  Director,  Carnot  ho- 
nestly has  made  a  fortune  of  twelve  millions  of  livres,  500,000/. ; 
which  has  enabled  him  not  only  to  live  in  style  with  his  wife, 
but  also  to  keep  in  style  two  sisters  of  the  name  of  Aublin,  as  his 
mistresses.  He  was  the  friend  of  the  father  of  these  girls,  and 
promised  him,  when  condemned  to  the  guillotine  in  1793,  to  be 
their  second  father  ;  but  he  debauched  and  ruined  them  both,  be- 
fore either  was  fourteen  years  of  age  :  and  youn-p  Aublin,  who, 
in  1796,  reproached  him  with  the  infamy  of  his  conduct,  was  de- 
Jjveredup  by  him  to  a  military  commission,  which  condemned 


316  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

him  to  be  shot  as  an  emigrant.     He  has  two  children  by  each  of 
these  unfortunate  girls. 

Buonaparte  employs  Carnot,  but  despises  and  mistrusts  him  ; 
being  well  aware  that,  should  another  National  Convention  be 
convoked,  and  the  Emperor  of  the  French  be  arraigned,  as  the 
King  of  France  was,  he  would  with  as  great  pleasure  vote  for  the 
execution  of  Napoleone  the  First,  as  he  did  for  that  of  Louis 
XVI.  He  has  waded  too  far  in  blood  and  crimes  to  retrogade. 

To  this  sample  of  a  modern  tribune,  I  will  add  a  specimen  of 
a  modern  legislator.  Baptiste  Cavaignac  was,  before  the  Revo- 
lution, an  excise-officer,  turned  out  of  his  place  for  infidelity  ;  but 
the  department  of  Lot  electing  him,  in  1792,  a  representative  of 
the  people  to  the  National  Convention,  he  there  voted  for  the 
death  of  Louis  XVI.  and  remained  a  faithful  associate  of  Marat 
and  Robespierre.  After  the  evacuation  of  Verdun  by  the  Prus- 
sians, in  October,  1792,  he  made  a  report  to  the  Convention,  ac- 
cording to  which  eighty- four  citizens  of  that  town  were  arrested 
and  executed.  Among  these  were  twenty-two  young  girls,  un- 
der twenty  years  of  age,  whose  crime  was  the  having  presented 
nosegays  to  the  late  King  of  Prussia,  on  his  entry  after  the  sur- 
render of  Verdun.  He  was  afterwards  a  national  commissary 
with  the  armies  on  the  coast,  near  Brest,  on  the  Rhine,  and  in 
the  Western  Pyrenees,  and  every  where  he  signalized  himself 
by  unheard-of  ferocities  and  sanguinary  deeds.  The  following 
anecdote,  printed  and  published  by  our  revolutionary  annalist, 
Prudhomme,  w;il  give  you  some  idea  of  the  morality  of  this  our 
regenerator  and  Imperial  Solon.  «  Cavaignac  and  another  de- 
puty, Pinet,"  writes  Prudhomme,  "  had  ordered  a  box  to  be  kept 
for  them  at  the  play-house,  at  Eayonne,  on  the  evening  they  ex- 
pected to  arrive  in  that  town.  Entering  very  late,  they  found 
two  soldiers,  who  had  seen  the  box  empty,  placed  in  its  front. 
These  they  ordered  immediately  to  be  arrested,  and  condemned 
them,  for  having  outraged  the  national  representation,  to  be  guil- 
lotined on  the  next  day,  when  they  both  were  accordingly  execut- 
ed !  Labarrere,  a  provost  of  the  Marechaussee  at  Dax,  was  in 
prison  as  a  suspected  person.  His  daughter,  a  very  handsome 
girl,  of  seventeen,  lived  with  an  aunt  at  St.  Severe.  The  two 
prcccnsuls,  passing  through  that  place,  she  threw  herself  at  their 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  317 

feet,  imploring  mercy  for  her  parent.  This  they  not  only  pro- 
mised, but  offered  her  a  place  in  the  carriage  to  Dax,  that  she 
might  see  him  restored  to  liberty.  On  the  road,  the  monsters 
insisted  on  a  ransom  for  the  blood  of  her  father.  Waiting,  af- 
flicted and  ashamed,  at  a  friend's  house  at  Dax,  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  promise  so  dearly  purchased,  she  htard  the  beating  of 
the  alarm  drum,  and  looked,  from  curiosity,  through  the  win- 
dow, when  she  saw  her  unfortunate  parent  ascending  the  scaf- 
fold !  After  having  remained  lifeless  for  half  an  hour,  she  reco* 
vered  her  senses  an  instant,  when  she  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  the  bar- 
barians !  they  violated  me,  while  flattering  me  with  the  hope  of 
saving  my  father !"  and  then  expired.  In  October,  1795,  he  as- 
sisted Barras  and  Buonaparte  in  the  destruction  of  some  thou- 
sands of  men,  women,  and  children,  in  the  streets  of  this  capital, 
and  was  therefore,  in  1796,  made  by  the  Directory  an  inspector- 
general  of  the  customs  ;  and,  in  1803,  nominated  by  Buonaparte 
a  legislator.  The  colleague  of  Cavaignac,  Citizen  Pinet,  is  now 
one  of  our  Emperor's  counsellors  of  state ;  and  both  are  com- 
manders  of  his  Majesty's  Legion  of  Honour ;  rich,  respected* 
and  frequented  by  our  most  fashionable  ladies  and  gentlemen. 


LETTER  LXXIII. 

Paris,  October,  1805, 

MY    LORD, 

I  SUPPOSE  your  government  too  vigilant  and  too  patriotic, 
not  to  be  informed  of  the  great  and  uninterrupted  activity  which 
reigns  in  our  arsenals,  dock-yards,  and  sea-ports.  I  have  seen  a 
plan,  according  to  which  Buonaparte  is  enabled,  and  intends  to 
build  twenty  ships  of  the  line,  and  ten  frigates,  besides  cutters,  in 
the  year,  for  ten  years  to  come.  I  read  the  calculation  of  the  ex- 
penses, the  names  of  the  forests  where  the  timber  is  to  be  cut, 
of  the  foreign  countries  where  a  part  of  the  necessary  materials 
are  already  engaged,  and  of  our  own  departments  which  are  to 
furnish  the  remainder.  The  whole  has  been  drawn  up  in  a  pre- 
cise and  clear  manner  by  Buonaparters  maritime  prefect  at  Ant- 
werp, M.  Malouet,  well  known  in  your  country,  where  he  long 
remained  as  an  emigrant,  and  I  believe  was  even  employed  by 
your  ministers, 

£e  2 


i 

318  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

You  may  perhaps  smile  at  this  vast  naval  scheme  of 
parte  ;  but  if  you  consider  that  he  is  the  master  of  all  the  forests? 
mines,  and  productions  of  France,  Italy,  and  of  a  great  part  of 
Germany,  with  all  the  navigable  rivers  and  sea-ports  of  these 
countries,  and  Holland,  and  remember  also  the  character  of  the 
man,  you  will,  perhaps,  think  it  less  impracticable.  The  great- 
est obstacle  he  has  to  encounter  and  to  remove,  is  want  of  ex- 
perienced naval  officers,  though  even  in  this  he  has  advanced 
greatly  since  the  present  war;  during  which  he  1ms  added  to  his 
naval  forces  twenty-nine  ships  of  the  line,  thirty-four  frigates, 
twenty-one  cutters,  three  thousand  praams,  gun-boats,  pinnaces, 
£cc.  with  four  thousand  naval  officers,  and  thirty-seven  thousand 
sailors,  according  to  the  same  account,  signed  by  Malouct.  It  is 
true,  that  most  of  our  new  naval  heroes  have  never  ventured  fa: 
from  our  coast,  and  all  their  naval  laurels  have  been  gathered  un- 
der our  land-batteries  ;  but  the  impulse  is  given  to  the  national 
spirit,  and  our  conscripts  in  the  maritime  departments  prefer,  to 
a  man,  the  navy  to  the  army,  which  was  not  formerly  the  case. 

It  cannot  have  escaped  your  observation,  that  the  incorporation 
of  Genoa  procured  us,  in  the  south  of  our  empire,  a  naval  station 
and  arsenal,  as  a  counterpoise  to  Antwerp,  our  new  naval  station 
in  the  north,  where  twelve  ships  of  the  line  have  been  built,  or  are 
building,  since  1803,  and  where  timber  and  other  materials  arc 
collected  for  eight  more.  At  Genoa,  two  ships  of  the  line  and 
four  frigates  have  lately  been  launched,  and  four  ships  and  two 
frigates  are  on  the  stocks  ;  and  the  Genoese  Republic  has  added 
sixteen  thousand  sea-faring  men  to  our  navy.  Should  Buonaparte 
terminate  successfully  the  present  war,  Naples  and  Venice  will 
increase  the  number  of  our  sea-ports  and  resources  on  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Mediterranean  and  Adriatic  seas.  All  his  courtiers 
say  that  he  will  conquer  Italy  in  Germany,  and  determine  at  Vi- 
enna the  fate  of  London. 

Of  all  our  admirals,  however,  we  have  not  one  to  compare  with 
your  Nelson,  your  Hood,  your  St.  Vincent,  and  your  Cornwallis. 
By  the  appointment  of  Murat  as  grand  admiral,  Buonaparte 
seems  to  indicate,  that  he  is  inclined  to  imitate  the  example  of 
JLouis  XVI.  in  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  and  entrust  the  chief 
command  of  his  fleets  and  squadrons  to  military  men,  of  approv- 
ed capacity  and  courage,  officers  of  his  land  troops,  Last  June, 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD. 

v.hen  he  expected  a  probable  junction  of  the  fleet  under  Ville- 
neiive  with  the  squadron  under  Admiral  Winter,  and  the  union 
of  both  with  Gantheaume,  at  Brest,  Murat  was  to  have  had  the 
chief  command  of  the  united  French,  Spanish,  and  Batavian 
fleets,  and  to  support  the  landing  of  our  troops  in  your  country  ; 
but  the  arrival  of  Lord  Nelson  in  the  West-Indies,  and  the  vic- 
tory of  Admiral  Calder,  deranged  all  our  plans,  and  postponed 
all  our  designs,  which  the  continental  war  has  interrupted,  to  be 
commenced,  God  knows  when. 

The  best  amongst  our  bad  admirals,  is  certainly  Truguet,  but 
lie  was  discharged  last  year,  and  exiled  twenty  leagues  from  the 
coast,  for  having*  declared  too  publicly,  "  that  our  flotillas  would 
never  be  serviceable  before  our  fleets  were  superior  to  yours, 
ivhen  they  would  become  useless"  An  intriguer  by  long  habit, 
and  by  character,  having  neither  property  nor  principles,  he  join- 
ed the  Revolution,  and  was 'the  second  in  command  under  La- 
toiiche,  in  the  first  republican  fleet  that  left  our  harbours.  He 
directed  the  expedition  against  Sardinia,  in  January,  1793,  dur- 
ing which  he  acquired  neither  honour  nor  glory,  being  repulsed 
with  great  loss  by  the  inhabitants.  After  being  imprisoned  un- 
der Robespierre,  the  Directory  made  him  a  minister  of  the  ma- 
rine, an  ambassador  to  Spain,  and  a  vice-admiral  of  France.  In 
this  capacity  he  commanded  at  Brest,  during  the  first  eighteen 
months  of  the  present  war.  He  has  an  irreconcileable  foe  in 
Talleyrand,  with  whom  he  quarrelled  when  on  his  embassy  in 
Spain,  about  some  extortions  at  Madrid,  which  he  declined  to 
share  with  his  principal  at  Paris.  Such  was  our  minister's  inve- 
teracy against  him  in  1798,  that  a  directorial  decree  placed  him 
on  the  list  of  emigrants,  because  he  remained  in  Spain  after  hav- 
ing been  recalled  to  France.  In  1799,  during  Talleyrand's  dis- 
grace, Truguet  returned  here,  and  after  in  vain  challenging  his 
enemy  to  fight,  caned  him  in  the  Luxemburgh  gardens,  a  chas- 
tisement which  our  premier  bore  with  a  true  Christian  patience, 
Truguet  is  not  even  a  member  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

Villeneuve  is  supposed  not  much  inferior  in  talents,  experience, 
and  modesty,  to  Truguet.  He  was  before  the  Revolution  a  lieu* 
tenant  of  the  navy  ;  but  his  principles  did  not  prevent  him  from 
deserting  to  the  colours  of  the  enemies  of  royalty,  who  pro- 
irioted  him  first  to  a  captain,  and  afterwards  to  an  admiral,  His 


S20  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

first  command  as  such  was  over  a  division  of  the  Toulon  fleet? 
which,  in  the  winter  of  1797,  entered  Brest.  In  the  battle  at 
Aboukir  he  was  the  second  in  command  ;  and  after  the  death 
of  admiral  Brueys,  he  rallied  the  ships  which  had  escaped,  and 
sailed  for  Malta,  where,  two  years  afterwards,  he  signed  with 
General  Vaubois  the  capitulation  of  that  island.  When  hostili- 
ties again  broke  out,  he  commanded  in  the  West-Indies,  and, 
leaving  his  station,  escaped  your^cruisers,  and  was  appointed  first 
to  the  chief  command  of  the  Rochefort,  and  afterwards  of  the 
Toulon  fleet,  on  the  death  of  Admiral  Latouche.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  gasconade  of  his  report  of  his  negative  victory  over  Ad- 
miral Calder,  Villeneuve  is  not  a  Gascon  by  birth,  but  only  by 
sentiment. 

Gantheaume  dots  not  possess  either  the  intriguing  character 
of  Truguet,  or  the  -valorous  one  of  Villeneuve  ;  before  the  Revo- 
lution, he  was  a  mate  of  a  merchantman  ;  but  when  most  of  the 
officers  of  the  royal  navy  had  emigrated  or  perished,  he  was  in 
1793  made  a  captain  of  the  republican  navy,  and  in  1796,  an  ad- 
miral. During  the  battle  of  Aboukir  he  was  the  chief  of  the 
staff,  under  Admiral  Brueys,  and  saved  himself  by  swimming, 
when  1'Orient  took  fire  and  blew  up.  Buonaparte  wrote  to  him 
on  this  occasion  :  "  The  picture  you  have  sent  me  of  the  disaster 
of  rOrient,  and  of  your  own  dreadful  situation,  is  horrible  ;  but 
be  assured  that,  having  such  a  miraculous  escape,  DESTINY  in- 
tends you  to  avenge  one  day  our  navy  and  our  friends."  This 
note  was  written  in  August,  1798,  shortly  after  Buonaparte  had 
professed  himself  a  Mussulman. 

When,  in  the  summer  of  1799,  our  general  in  chief  had  de- 
termined to  leave  his  army  of  Egypt  to  its  destiny,  Gantheaume 
equipped  and  commanded  the  squadron  of  frigates  which  brought 
him  to  Europe,  and  was,  after  his  consulate,  appointed  a  coun- 
sellor of  state,  and  commander  at  Brest.  In  1800,  he  escaped 
•with  a  division  of  the  Brest  fleet  to  Toulon  ;  and,  in  the  summer 
of  1801,  when  he  was  ordered  to  carry  succours  to  Egypt,  your 
ship  Swiftsure  fell  in  with  him,  and  was  captured.  As  he  did 
not,  however,  succeed  in  landing  in  Egypt  the  troops  on  board 
his  ships,  a  temporary  disgrace  was  incurred,  and  he  was  de- 
prived of  the  command,  but  made  a  maritime  prefect.  Last  year 
favour  was  restored  him,  with  the  command  of  our  naval  forces 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  32  i 

at  Brest.  All  officers  who  have  served  under  Gantheaume  agree 
that,  let  his  fleet  be  ever  so  superior,  he  will  never  fight  if  he  can 
avoid  it,  and  that,  in  orderly11  times,  his  capacity  would  at  the  ut- 
most make  him  regarded  as  a  good  master  of  a  merchantman, 
and  nothing  else. 

Of  the  present  commander  of  our  flotilla  at  Boulogne,  La 
Crosse,  I  will  also  say  some  few  words.  A  lieutenant  before  the 
Revolution,  he  became  in  1789  one  of  the  most  ardent  and  vio- 
lent jacobins  ;  and  in  1792  was  employed  by  the  friend  of  the 
blacks,  and  our  minister,  Monge,  as  an  emissary  in  the  West-In- 
dies, to  preach  there  to  the  negroes  the  rights  of  man,  and  in- 
surrection against  the  whites,  their  masters.  In  1 800,  Buona- 
parte advanced  him  to  a  captain-general  at  Guadaloupe,  an  island 
which  his  plots,  eight  years  before,  had  involved  in  all  the  hor- 
rors of  anarchy  ;  and  where,  now  when  he  attempted  to  restore 
order,  his  former  instruments  rose  against  him,  and  forced  him 
to  escape  to  one  of  your  islands,  I  believe  Dominico.  Of  this 
island,  in  return  for  his  reception,  he  took  plans,  according  to 
which  our  General  La  Grange  endeavoured  to  conquer  it  last 
spring.  La  Crosse  is  a  perfect  revolutionary  fanatic,  unprinci- 
pled, cruel,  unfeeling  and  intolerant.  His  presumption  is  great, 
but  his  talents  are  trifling. 


LETTER  LXXIV. 

Par/a,  October,  1805. 

MY  LORD, 

THE  defeat  of  the  Austrians  has  excited  great  satisfaction 
among  our  courtiers  and  public  functionaries  ;  but  the  mass  of 
the  inhabitants  here  are  too  miserable  to  feel  for  any  thing  else 
but  their  own  sufferings.  They  know  very  well  that  every  vic- 
tory rivets  their  fetters,  that  no  disasters  can  make  them  more 
heavy,  and  no  triumph  lighter.  Totally  indifferent  about  exter- 
nal occurrences  as  well  as  about  internal  oppressions,  they  strive 
to  forget  both  the  past  and  the  present,  and  to  be  indifferent  as 
to  the  future  ;  they  would  be  glad  could  they  cease  to  feel  that 
they  exist.  The  police  officers  were  now  with  their  gens- 
d'armes bayoneting  them  into  illuminations  for  Buonaparte's  suo 


322  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

cesses ;  as  they  dragooned  them  last  year,  into  rejoicings  for  his 
coronation.  I  never  observed  before  so  much  apathy  ;  and,  in 
more  than  one  place,  I  heard  the  people  say,  "Oh  !  how  much 
better  we  should  be  with  fewer  victories,  and  more  tranquillity  ; 
•with  less  splendour  and  more  security  ;  with  an  honest  peace  in- 
stead of  a  brilliant  war."  But  in  a  country  groaning  under  a 
military  government,  the  opinions  of  the  people  are  counted  for 
nothing. 

At  Madame  Joseph  Buonaparte's  circle,  however,  the  counte- 
nances were  not  so  gloomy.  There,  a  real  or  affected  joy  seemed  to 
enliven  the  usual  dullness  of  these  parties  ;  some  actors  were  re- 
peating patriotic  verses  in  honour  of  the  victor ;  while  others 
were  sinking  airs  or  vaudevilles,  to  inspire  our  warriors  with  as 
much  hatred  towards  your  nation,  as  gratitude  towards  our  Em- 
peror. It  is  certainly  neither  philosophical  nor  philanthropical^ 
not  to  exclude  the  vilest  of  all  passions,  HATRED,  on  such  a  hap- 
py occasion.  Martin,  in  the  dress  of  a  conscript,  sung  six  long 
couplets  against  the  tyrants  of  the  seas ;  of  which  I  was  only  able 
to  retain  the  following  one  : 

Je  detest e  le  peuple  Anglais, 

Je  deteste  son  ministere ; 

J'aime  1'Empereur  des  Francais, 

J'aime  la  paix,  je  hais  la  guerre  ; 

Mais  puisqu'il  faut  la  soutenir 

Contre  vine  Nation  Saicvage 

Mon  plus  doux,  mon  plus  grand  desir 

Est  de  montrer  tout  mon  courage. 

But  what  arrested  my  attention  more  than  any  thing  else 
which  occurred  in  this  circle  on  that  evening,  was  a  printed  pa- 
per mysteriously  handed  about,  and  of  which,  thanks  to  the  ci- 
vility of  a  counsellor  of  state,  I  at  last  got  a  sight.  It  was  a  list 
of  those  persons,  of  different  countries,  whom  the  Emperor  of 
the  French  has^jrerf  upon,  to  replace  all  the  ancient  dynasties  of 
Europe  within  twenty  years  to  come.  From  the  names  of  these 
individuals,  some  of  whom  are  known  to  me,  I  could  perceive, 
that  Buonaparte  had  more  difficulty  to  select  proper  Emperors, 
Kings  and  Electors,  than  he  would  have  had  some  years  ago,  to 
choose  directors  or  consuls.  Our  inconsistency  is,  however,  evi- 
dent even  here  ;  I  did  not  read  a  name,  that  is  not  found  in  tho 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  MS 

(uiihals  of  jacobinism  and  republicanism.  We  have,  at  the  same 
tim^,  taken  care  not  to  forget  ourselves  in  this  new  distribution 
of  supremacy.  France  is  to  furnish  the  stock  of  the  new  dynas^ 
ties  for  Austria,  England,  Spain,  Denmark,  and  Sweden.  What 
would  you  think,  were  you  to  awake  one  morning  the  subject  of 
King  Arthur  O'Connor  the  First?  You  would,  I  dare  say,  be 
even  more  surprised  than  I  am,  in  being  the  subject  of  Napo* 
leone  Buonaparte  the  First.  You  know,  I  suppose,  that  O'Con- 
nor is  a  general  of  division,  and  a  commander  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour;  the  bosom  friend  of  Talleyrand,  and  courting  at  this 
moment,  a  young  lady,  a  relation  of  our  Empress,  whose  por- 
tion may  one  day  be  an  empire.  But  I  am  told  that,  notwithstand- 
ing Talleyrand's  recommendations,  or  the  approbation  of  her  Ma- 
jesty, the  lady  prefers  a  colonel,  her  own  countryman  to  the  Irish 
general.  Should,  however,  our  Emperor  announce  his  determi- 
nation, she  would  be  obliged  to  marry  as  he  commands,  were  he 
even  to  give  her  his  groom,  or  his  horse,  for  a  spouse, 

You  can  form  no  idea  how  wretched  and  despised  all  the  Irish 
rebels  are  here  ;  O'Connor  alone  is  an  exception  ;  and  this  he 
owes  to  Talleyrand,  to  General  Valence,  and  to  Madame  Genlis  ; 
but  even  he  is  looked  on  with  a  sneer,  and,  if  he  ever  was  re* 
spcctcd  in  England,  must  endure,  with  poignancy,  the  contempt 
to  which  he  is  frequently  exposed  in  France.  When  I  was  in 
your  country,  I  often  heard  it  said,  that  the  Irish  were  generally 
considered  as  a  debased  and  perfidious  people,  extremely  addict- 
ed to  profligacy,  and  drunkenness,  and  when  once  drunk,  more 
cruelly  ferocious  than  even  our  jacobins.  I  thought  it  then,  and 
I  still  believe  it,  a  national  prejudice,  because  I  am  convinced) 
that  the  vices  or  virtues  of  all  civilized  nations  are  relatively  the 
same  ;  but  those  Irish  rebels  we  have  seen  here,  and  who  must 
be  like  our  jacobins,  the  very  dregs  of  their  country,  have  con- 
ducted themselves  so  as  to  inspire  not  only  mistrust  but  abhor- 
rence. It  is  also  an  undeniable  truth,  that  they  were  greatly 
disappointed  by  our  former  and  p.-csent  government.  They  ex- 
pected to  enjoy  liberty  and  equality,  and  a  pension  for  their 
treachery  ;  but  our  police  commissaries  caught  them  at  their 
landing,  our  gens-d'armes  escorted  them  as  criminals  to  their 
place  of  destination,  and  there  they  received  just  enough  to  pre- 
vent them  from  starving.  If  they  complained,  they  were  put  in 


824  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

irons,  and  if  they  attempted  to  escape,  they  were  sent  to  the  ga!» 
leys  as  malefactors,  or  shot  as  spies.  Despair,  therefore,  no 
doubt,  induced  many  to  perpetrate  acts,  of  which  they  were  ac- 
cused, and  to  rob,  swindle,  and  murder,  because  they  were  pun- 
ished as  thieves  and  assassins.  But  some  of  them,  who  have 
keen  treated  in  the  most  friendly,  hospitable,  and  generous  man- 
ner in  this  capital,  have  proved  themselves  ungrateful,  as  well  as 
infamous,  A  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  of  a  once  large  fortune, 
had  nothing  left  but  some  furniture,  and  her  subsistence  depend- 
ed upon  what  she  got  by  letting  furnished  lodgings.  Mischance 
brought  three  young  Irishmen  to  her  house,  who  pretended  to  be 
in  daily  expectation  of  remittances  from  their  country,  and  of  a 
pension  from  Buonaparte.  During  six  months,  she  not  only 
?odged  and  supported  them,  but  embarrassed  herself  to  procure 
them  linen  and  decent  apparel.  At  last  she  was  informed  that 
each  of  them  had  been  allowed  sixty  livres  in  the  month,  21.  \0s. 
and  that  arrears  had  been  paid  them  for  nine  months.  Their  debt 
to  her  was  three  thousand  livres,  125/.  but  the  day  after  she  asked 
for  payment,  they  decamped,  and  one  ofthempersuaded  herdaugh- 
ter,  a  girl  of  14,  to  elope  with  him,and  to  assist  him  in  robbing  her 
mother  of  all  her  plate.  He  has  indeed  been  since  arrested,  and 
sentenced  to  the  galleys  for  eight  years ;  but  this  punishment  nei- 
ther restored  the  daughter  her  virtue,  nor  the  mother  her  proper- 
ty. The  other  two  denied  their  debts,  and  as  she  had  no  other  evi- 
dence but  her  own  scraps  of  accounts,  they  could  not  be  forced 
to  pay  ;  their  obdurate  effrontery  and  infamy,  however,  excited 
such  an  indignation  in  the  judges,  that  they  delivered  them  over 
as  swindlers  to  the  Tribunal  Correctional ;  and  the  minister  of 
police  ordered  them  to  be  transported  as  rogues  and  vagabonds 
to  the  colonies.  The  daughter  died  shortly  after  in  consequence 
of  a  miscarriage,  and  the  mother  did  not  survive  her  more  than 
a  month,  and  ended  her  days  in  the  Hotel  Dicu,  one  of  our  com* 
mon  hospitals.  Thus  these  depraved  young  men  ruined  and 
murdered  their  benefactress,  and  her  child  ;  and  displayed  before 
they  were  thirty,  such  consummate  villainy,  as  few  wretches, 
grown  hoary  in  vice,  have  perpetrated.  This  act  of  scandalous 
notoriety  injured  the  Irish  reputation  very  much  in  this  Country  ; 
for  here,  as  in  many  other  places,  inconsiderate  people  are  apt  to 
judge  a  whole  nation  according  to  the  behaviour  of  some  few  of 
its  outcasts. 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.         325 

LETTER  LXXV. 

Paris,  October,  1805, 

MY   LORD, 

THE  plan  of  the  campaign  of  the  Austrians  is  incompre- 
hensible to  all  our  military  men  ;  not  on  account  of  its  profun- 
dity, but  on  account  of  its  absurdity  or  incoherency.  In  the  pre- 
sent circumstances,  half  measures  must  always  be  destructive, 
and  it  is  better  to  strike  strongly  and  firmly  than  justly.  To  in- 
vade Bavaria,  without  disarming  the  Bavarian  army,  and  to  en- 
ter Suabia,  and  yet  acknowledge  the  neutrality  of  Switzerland, 
are  such  political  and  military  errors  as  require  long  successes 
to  repair  ;  but  which  such  an  enemy  as  Buonaparte  always  takes 
care  not  to  leave  unpunished. 

The  long  inactivity  of  the  army  under  the  Archduke  Charles 
has  as  much  surprised  us  as  the  defeat  of  the  army  under  Gene- 
ral Mack  ;  but  from  what  I  know  of  the  former,  I  am  persuaded 
that  he  would  long  since  have  pushed  forward,  had  not  his  move- 
ments been  unfortunately  combined  with  those  of  the  latter.  The 
House  of  Lorraine  never  produced  a  more  valiant  warrior,  nor 
Austria  a  more  liberal  or  better  instructed  statesman,  than  this 
Prince.  Heir  of  the  talents  of  his  ancestors,  he  has  commanded 
with  glory  against  France  during  the  revolutionary  war  ;  and  al- 
though he  sometimes  experienced  defeats,  he  has  rendered  in- 
valuable services  to  the  chief  of  his  House,  by  his  courage,  by 
his  activity,  by  his  constancy,  and  by  that  salutary  firmness, 
which  in  calling  the  generals  and  superior  officers  to  their  duty, 
has  often  reanimated  the  confidence  and  the  ardour  of  the  sol- 
dier, 

The  Archduke  Charles  began,  in  1793,  his  military  career 
under  Prince  Cobourg,  the  commander  in  chief  of  the  Austrian 
armies  in  Brabant,  where  he  commanded  the  advanced  guard, 
and  distinguished  himself  by  a  valour  sometimes  bordering  on 
temerity,  but  which  by  degrees  acquired  him  that  esteem  and 
popularity  among  the  troops,  often  very  advantageous  to  him  af- 
terwards. He  was,  in  1794,  appointed  governor  and  captain-ge- 
neral of  the  Low  Countries,  and  a  field-marshal  lieutenant  of  the 
army  of  the  German  empire.  In  April,  1796,  he  took  the  com- 
mand in  chief  of  the  armies  of  Austria  and  of  the  empire,  and 
in  the  following  June  engaged  in  several  combats  with  General 

Ff 


326  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Moreau,  in  which  he  was  repulsed,  but  in  a  manner  that  did 
equal  honour  to  the  victor  and  to  the  vanquished. 

The  Austrian  army  on  the  Lower  Rhine,  under  General  War- 
tensleben,  having  about  this  time,  been  nearly  dispersed  by  Ge- 
neral Jourdan,  the  Archduke  left  some  divisions  of  his  forces, 
under  General  Latour,  to  impede  the  progress  of  Moreau,  and 
went  with  the  remainder  into  Franconia,  where  he  defeated 
Jourdan,  near  Amburgh  and  Wurtzburgh,  routed  his  army  en- 
tirely, and  forced  him  to  repass  the  Rhine  in  the  greatest  confu- 
sion, and  with  immense  loss.  The  retreat  of  Moreau  was  the 
consequence  of  the  victories  of  this  Prince.  After  the  capture 
of  Kehi,  in  January,  1797,  he  assumed  the  command  of  the  army 
of  Italy,  where  he  in  vain  employed  all  his  efforts  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  victorious  progress  of  Buonaparte,  with  whom  at  last 
he  signed  the  preliminaries  of  peace  at  Leoben.  In  the  spring 
of  1799,  he  again  defeated  Jourdan  in  Suabia,  as  he  had  done 
two  years  before  in  Francoiiiu  :  but  in  Switzerland,  he  met  with 
an  abler  adversary  in  General  Massena ;  still  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  he  displayed  there  more  real  talents  than  any  where 
else  ;  and  that  this  part  of  his  campaign  of  1799,  was  the  most 
interesting,  in  a  military  point  of  view. 

The  most  implacable  enemies  of  the  politics  of  the  House  of 
Austria  render  justice  to  the  plans,  to  the  frankness,  to  the  mo- 
rality ot  Archduke  Charles ;  and  what  is  remarkable,  of  all  the 
chiefs  who  have  commanded  against  revolutionary  France,  he  alone 
has  seized  the  true  manner  of  combating  enthusiasts  or  slaves  ; 
at  least  his  proclamations  are  the  only  ones  composed  with 
adroitness,  and  are  what  they  ought  to  be  ;  because  in  them  an 
appeal  is  made  to  the  public  opinion,  in  a  time  where  opinion  al- 
most constitutes  half  the  strength  of  armies. 

The  present  opposer  of  this  Prince  in  Italy,  is  one  of  our  best 
as  well  as  most  fortunate  Generals.  A  Sardinian  subject,  and  a 
deserter  from  the  Sardinian  troops,  he  assisted,  in  1792,  our 
commander  General  Anselm,  in  the  conquest  of  the  country  of 
Nice,  rather  as  a  spy  than  as  a  soldier.  His  knowledge  of  the 
Maritime  Alps  obtained,  in  1793,  a  place  on  our  staff,  where^ 
from  the  services  he  rendered,  the  rank  of  a  general  of  brigade 
was  soon  conferred  on  him.  In  1796,  he  was  promoted  to  serve 
as  a  general  cf  division  under  Buonaparte  in  Italy,  where  he  dis- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  327 

tinguished  himself  so  much,  that  when,  in  1798,  Gep  eral  Ber- 
thier  was  ordered  to  accompany  the  army  of  the  East  to  Egypt, 
he  succeeded  him  as  commander  in  chief  of  our  troops,  in  the 
temporary  Roman  Republic.  But  his  merciless  pillage,  and 
perhaps  the  idea  of  his  being  a  foreigner,  brought  on  a  mutiny, 
and  the  Directory  was  obliged  to  recall  him.  It  was  his  cam- 
paign in  Switzerland,  of  1799,  and  his  defence  of  Genoa,  in  1800, 
that  principally  ranked  him  high  as  a  military  chief.  After  the 
battle  of  Marengo,  he  received  the  command  of  the  army  of 
Italy,  but  his  extortions  produced  a  revolt  among  the  inhabit- 
ants ;  and  he  lived  for  some  time  in  retreat  and  disgrace,  after  a 
violent  quarrel  with  Buonaparte,  during  which  many  seven- 
truths  were  said  and  heard  on  both  sides. 

After  the  peace  of  Luneville,  he  seemed  inclined  to  join  Tvlo- 
reau  and  other  discontented  generals  ;  but  observing,  no  doubt, 
their  want  of  views  and  union,  he  retired  to  an  estate  he  has 
bought  near  Paris;  where  Buonaparte  visited  him,  after  the  rup- 
ture with  your  country,  and  made  him,  we  may  conclude,  such 
offers  as  tempted  him  to  leave  his  retreat.  Last  year  he  was 
nominated  one  of  our  Emperor's  field-marshals,  and  as  such  he 
relieved  Jourdan  of  the  command  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  He 
has  purchased  'with  a,  part  of  his  spoil,  for  fifteen  millions  of 
livres,  625,000/.  property,  in  France  and  Italy;  and  is  consider- 
ed worth  double  that  sum  in  jewels,  money,  and  other  valu- 
ables. 

Massena  is  called  in  France,  the  spoiled  child  of  fortune  ;  and  as 
Buonaparte,  like  our  former  Cardinal  Mazarin,  has  more  confi* 
dence  in  fortune  than  in  merit,  he  is  perhaps  more  indebted  to 
the  former  than  to  the  latter  for  his  present  situation  ;  his  fami- 
liarity has  made  him  disliked  at  our  Imperial  court,  where  he 
never  addresses  Napoleone  and  Madame  Buonaparte  as  an  Em- 
peror or  an  Empress,  without  smiling. 

General  St.  Cyr,  our  second  in  command  of  the  army  of  Ita- 
ly, is  also  an  officer  of  great  talents  and  distinction.  He  was,  in 
1791,  only  a  cornet,  but,  in  1795,  he  headed,  as  a  general,  adivi- 
sion  of  the  army  of  the  Rhine.  In  his  report  to  the  Directory, 
during  the  fcimous  retreat  of  1796,  Moreau  speaks  highly  of  this 
general,  and  admits  that  his  achievements,  in  part,  saved  the  re- 
publican army,  During  1799,  he  served  m  Italy  ;  and  in  1800? 


328  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

he  commanded  the  centre  of  the  army  of  the  Rhine,  and  assisted 
in  gaining  the  victory  of  Hohenlinden.  After  the  peace  of  Lune- 
ville,  he  was  appointed  a  counsellor  of  state  of  the  military 
section,  a  place  he  still  occupies^  notwithstanding  his  present 
employment.  Though  under  forty  years  of  age,  he  is  rather  in- 
firm from  the  fatigues  he  has  undergone,  and  the  wounds  he  has 
received.  Although  he  has  never  combated  as  a  general  in 
chief,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  he  would  fill  such  a  place  with 
honour  to  himself,  and  advantage  to  his  country. 

Of  the  general  officers  who  commanded  under  Archduke 
Charles,  Count  de  Bellegarde  is  already  known  by  his  exploits 
during  the  last  war.  He  had  distinguished  himself  already  in 
1793,  particularly  when  Valenciennes  and  Maubeuge  were  be- 
sieged by  the  united  Austrian  and  English  forces  ;  and,  in  1794, 
he  commanded  the  column,  at  the  head  of  which  the  Emperor 
marched,  when  Landrecy  was  invested.  In  1796,  he  was  one 
of  the  members  of  the  council  of  the  Archduke  Charles,  when 
this  Prince  commanded  for  the  first  time  as  a  general  in  chief, 
on  which  occasion  he  was  promoted  to  a  field-marshal  lieute- 
nant. He  again  displayed  great  talents  during  the  campaign  of 
1799,  when  he  headed  a  small  corps,  placed  between  General 
Suwarrow,  in  Italy,  and  Archduke  Charles,  in  Switzerland  ;  and 
in  this  delicate  post,  he  contributed  equally  to  the  success  of 
both.  After  the  peace  of  Limeville,  he  was  appointed  a  com- 
mander in  chief  for  the  Emperor  of  the  ci-devant  Venetian  States, 
where  the  troops  composing  the  army  under  the  Archduke 
Charles,  were  last  summer  received  and  inspected  by  him,  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  the  Prince.  He  is  considered  by  military 
men  as  greatly  superior  to  most  of  the  generals  now  employed 
by  the  Emperor  of  Germany. 


LETTER  LXXVI. 

Paris,  October,  1805. 

MY    LORD. 

"  I  WOULD  give  my  brother,  the  Emperor  of  Germany, 
one  further  piece  of  advice — -Let  him  hasten  to  make  peace. 
This  is  the  crisis,  when  he  must  recollect,  all  states  must  have  an 
end.  The  idea  of  the  GJifirQaching  extinction  of  th.e  dynasty  of 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  329 

JLorrame,  must  imfiress  him  with  horror"  When  Buonaparte  or.- 
dered  this  paragraph  to  be  inserted  in  the  Moniteur,  he  discovered 
an  arriere  fiense,  long  suspected  by  politicians,  but  never  before 
avowed  by  himself,  or  by  his  ministers.  "  That  he  has  deter- 
mined on  the  universal  change  of  dynasties,  because  an  usurper, 
can  never  reign  with  safety  or  honour,  as  long  as  any  legitimate 
Prince  may  disturb  his  power,  or  reproach  him  for  his  rank." 
Elevated  with  prosperity,  or  infatuated  with  vanity  and  pride,  he 
spoke  a  language  which  his  placemen,  courtiers,  and  even  his 
brother  Joseph,  at  first  thought  liremature^  if  not  indiscreet.  If 
all  lawful  sovereigns  do  not  read,  in  these  words,  their  proscrip- 
tion, and  the  fate  which  the  most  powerful  usurper  that  ever  de- 
solated mankind  has  destined  for  them,  it  may  be  ascribed  to 
that  blindness,  with  which  Providence,  in  its  wrath,  sometimes 
strikes  those  doomed  to  be  grand  examples  of  the  vicissitudes  of 
human  life. 

"  Had  Talleyrand,"  said  Louis  Buonaparte,  in  his  wife's  draw- 
ing-room, "  been  by  my  brother's  side,  he  would  not  have  unne- 
cessarily alarmed  or  awakened  those  whom  it  should  have  been 
his  policy  to  keep  in  a  soft  slumber,  until  his  blows  had  laid  them 
down  to  rise  no  more ;  but  his  soldier-like  frankness  frequently 
injures  his  political  views."  This  I  myself  heard  Louis  say  to 
Abbe  Sieyes,  though  several  foreign  ambassadors  were  in  the  sa- 
loon, near  enough  not  to  miss  a  word.  If  it  was  really  meant  as 
a  reflection  on  Napoleone,  it  Was  imprudent ;  if  designed  as  a  de- 
fiance to  other  princes,  it  was  unbecoming  and  impertinent.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  it,  considering  the  individual  to  whom  it 
was  addressed,  a  premeditated  declaration,  that  our  Emperor  ex« 
pected  an  universal  war,  was  prepared  for  it,  and  was  certain  of 
its  fortunate  issue. 

When  this  Sieyes  is  often  consulted,  and  publicly  nattered, 
our  politicians  say,  "  Woe  to  the  happiness  of  Sovereigns  and 
to  the  tranquillity  of  subjects  ;  the  fiend  of  mankind  is  busy, 
and  at  work  ;"  and,  in  fact,  ever  since  1789,  the  infamous  ex- 
abbe  has  figured,  either  as  a  plotter  or  as  an  actor,  in  all  our 
dreadful  and  sanguinary  revolutionary  tpochas.  The  ac- 
complice of  La  Fayette  in  1789,  of  Brissot  in  1791,  of  Ma- 
rat in  1792,  of  Robespierre  in  1793,  of  Tallien  in  1794,  of 
Barras  in  1795,  of  Rewbell  in  1797,  and  of  Buonaparte  in. 

F  fa 


330  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

1799;  he  has  hitherto  planned,  served,  betrayed,  or  deserted, 
all  factions.  He  is  one  of  the  few  of  our  grand  criminals 
who,  after  enticing  and  sacrificing  his  associates,  has  been  for- 
tunate enough  to  survive  them.  Buonaparte  has  heaped  upon 
him  presents,  places,  and  pensions ;  national  property,  senatories, 
knighthoods,  and  palaces  ;  but  he  is  nevertheless  not  supposed 
one  of  our  Emperor's  most  dutiful  subjects,  because  many  of  the 
late  changes  have  differed  from  metaphysical  schemes  of  inno- 
vation, of  regeneration,  and  of  overthrow.  He  has  too  high  an 
opinion  of  his  own  deserts,  not  to  consider  it  beneath  his  philo- 
sophical dignity,  to  be  a  contented  subject  of  a  fellow-subject, 
elevated  into  supremacy  by  his  labours  and  dangers..  His  mo- 
desty has,  for  these  sixteen  years  past,  ascribed  to  his  talents  all 
the  glory  and  firosjierity  of  France,  and  all  her  misery  and  mis- 
fortunes to  the  disregard  of  his  counsels,  and  to  the  neglect  of 
his  advice.  Buonaparte  knows  it ;  and  that  he  is  one  of  those 
crafty,  sly,  and  dark  conspirators,  more  dangerous  than  the  bold 
assassin,  who,  by  sophistry,  art,  and  perseverance,  insinuate  into 
the  minds  of  the  unwary  and  daring,  the  ideas  of  their  plots  in- 
such  an  insidious  manner,  that  they  take  them  and  foster  them 
as  the  production  of  their  own  genius  ;  he  is,  therefore,  watch- 
ed by  our  Imperial  spies,  and  never  consulted,  but  when  any 
great  blow  is  intended  to  be  struck,  or  some  enormous  atroci- 
ties perpetrated.  A  month  before  the  seizure  of  the  Duke 
d'Enghien,  and  the  murder  of  Pichegru,  he  was  every  day  shut 
up  for  some  hours  with  Napcleone  Buonaparte  at  St.  Cloud,  or 
in  the  Thuilleries,  where  he  has  hardly  been  seen  since,  except 
after  our  Emperor's  return  from  his  coronation  as  a  King  of 
Italy. 

Sieyes  never  was  a  republican  ;  and  it  v/as  cowardice  alone 
that  made  him  vote  for  the  death  of  his  King  and  benefactor  ; 
although  he  is  very  fond  of  his  own  metaphysical  notions,  he  al- 
ways has  preferred  the  preservation  of  his  life  to  the  profession 
or  adherence  to  his  systems.  He  will  not  think  the  Revolution 
complete,  or  the  constitution  of  his  country  a  good  one,  untiT 
some  Napoleone,  or  some  Louis,  writes  himself  an  Emperor  or 
King  of  France  by  the  grace  of  Sieyes  ;  he  would  expose  the  lives 
of  thousands,  to  obtain  such  a  compliment  to  his  hateful  vanity 
and  excessive  pride  ;  but  he  wowld  not  take  a  step  that  endan- 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  ^t 

gered  his  personal  safety,  though  it  might  eventually  lead  him 
to  the  possession  of  a  crown. 

From  the  bounty  of  his  King,  Sieyes  had,  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, an  income  of  fifteen  thousand  livres  625/.  per  annum  ;  his 
places,  pensions,  and  landed  estates,  produce  now  nearly  five 
hundred  thousand  livres,  20,060/.  not  including  the  interest  of 
his  money  in  the  French  and  foreign  funds.  Two  years  ago, 
he  was  exiled  for  some  time,  to  an  estate  of  his  in  Tourrain,  and 
Buonaparte  even  deliberated  about  transporting  him  to  Cayenne  ; 
when  Talleyrand  observed,  "  that  such  a  condemnation  would 
endanger  the  colony  of  France,  as  he  would  certainly  organize 
there  a  focus  of  revolutions,  which  might  also  involve  Surinam 
and  the  Brazils,  the  colonies  of  our  allies,  in  one  common  ruin. 
In  the  present  circumstances,"  added  the  minister,  "  if  Sieyes 
is  to  be  transported,  I  wish  we  could  land  him  in  England,  Scot- 
land, or  Ireland,  or  even  Russia." 

I  have  just  heard  from  a  general  officer,  the  following  anecdote, 
which  he  read  to  me  from  a  letter  of  another  general,  dated 
Ulm,  the  25th  instant,  and  if  true,  it  explains  in  part,  Buona- 
parte's indiscretion  in  the  threat  thrown  out  against  all  ancient 
dynasties. 

Among  his  confidential  generals  (and  hitherto  the  most  irre- 
proachable of  all  our  military  commanders)  Marmont  is  particu- 
larly distinguished.  Before  Napoleone  left  this  capital  to  head 
his  armies  in  Germany,  he  is  said  to  have  sent  dispatches  to  all 
those  traitors  dispersed  in  different  countries,  whom  he  has  se- 
lected to  commence  the  new  dynasties,  under  the  protection  of 
the  Buonaparte  dynasty.  They  were,  no  doubt,  advised  of  this 
being  the  crisis-)  when  they  had  to  begin  their  machinations  against 
thrones.  A  courier  from  Talleyrand  at  Strasburgh,  to  Buona- 
parte at  Ulm,  was  ordered  to  pass  by  the  corps  under  the  com- 
mand of  Marmont,  to  whom,  in  case  the  Emperor  had  advanced 
too  far  into  Germany,  he  was  to  deliver  his  papers.  This  cou- 
rier was  surprised,  and  interrupted  by  some  Austrian  light 
troops  ;  and  as  it  was  only  some  few  hours  after  being  informed 
of  this  capture,  that  Buonaparte  expressed  himself  frankly,  as 
related  above,  it  was  supposed  by  his  army,  that  the  Austrian 
government  had  already  in  its  power,  dispatches,  which  made  our 
schemes  of  improvement  at  Paris,  no  longer  any  secrets  at  Vien- 


332  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

•^ 

na.  The  writer  of  this  letter  added,  that  General  Marmont  was 
highly  distressed  on  account  of  this  accident,  which  might  retard 
the  prospect  of  restoring  Europe  to  its  long  lost  peace  and  tran- 
quillity. 

This  officer  made  his  first  campaign  under  Pichegru  in  1794, 
and  was,  in  1796,  appointed  by  Buonaparte,  one  of  his  aides-de- 
camp. His  education  has  been  entirely  military,  and  in  the  prac- 
tice the  war  afforded  him,  he  soon  evinced  how  well  he  remem- 
bered the  lessons  of  theory.  In  the  year  1796,  at  the  battle 
of  St.  George,  before  Mantua,  he  charged,  at  the  head  of  the 
eighth  battalion  of  grenadiers,  and  contributed  much  to  its  for- 
tunate issue.  In  October,  the  same  year,  Buonaparte,  as  a  mark 
of  his  satisfaction,  sent  him  to  present  the  Directory  the  nume- 
rous colours  vvhich  the  army  of  Italy  had  conquered  ;  from 
whom  he  received  in  return,  a  pair  of  pistols,  with  a  fraternal 
hug  from  Cavnot.  On  his  return  to  Italy,  he  was,  for  the  first 
time,  employed  by  his  chief,  in  a  political  capacity.  A  Repub- 
lic, and  nothing  but  a  Republic,  being  then  the  order  of  the  day, 
some  Italian  patriots  were  convoked  at  Reggio,  to  arrange  apian 
for  a  Civalpine  Republic,  and  for  the  incorporation  with  it  of 
Modena,  Bologna,  and  other  neutral  states  ;  Marmont  was  nomi- 
nated a  French  Republican  plenipotentiary,  and  assisted  as  such, 
in  the  organization  of  a  commonwealth,  which  since  has  been  by 
turns  a  province  of  Austria,  or  a  tributary  state  of  France. 

Marmont,  though  combating  for  a  bad  cause,  is  an  honest 
man  ;  his  hands  are  neither  soiled  with  plunder,  nor  stained  with 
blood.  Buonaparte,  among  his  other  good  qualities,  wishes  to 
see  every  one  about  him  rich  ;  and  those  who  have  been  too  de- 
licate to  accumulate  wealth  by  pillage,  he  generally  provides 
for,  by  putting  into  requisition  some  great  heiress.  After  the 
peace  of  Campo  Formio,  Buonaparte  arrived  at  Paris,  where  he 
demanded  .in  marriage  for  his  aide-de-camp  Marmont,  Made- 
moiselle Perregeaux,  the  sole  child  of  the  first  banker  in  France; 
a  well  educated  and  accomplished  young  lady,  who  would  be 
much  more  agreeable,  did  not  her  continual  smiles  and  laugh^ 
ing.  indicate  a  degree  of  self-satisfaction  and  complacency,  which 
n%  be  felt,  but  ought  never  to  be  published. 
jh:  The  banker  Perregeaux  is  one  of  those  fortunate  beings,  who, 
-vby  drudgery  and  assiduity,  has  succeeded  in  some  few  years  to 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD.  333 

raakc  an  ample  fortune.  A  Swiss  by  birth,  like  Necker,  he  also 
like  him,  after  gratifying  the  passion  of  avidity,  showed  an  am- 
bition to  shine  in  other  places  than  in  the  counting-house  and 
upon  the  exchange.  Under  La  Fayette,  in  1790,  he  was  the 
chief  of  a  battalion  of  the  Parisian  national  guards  ;  under  Robe- 
spierre, a  commissioner  for  purchasing  provisions  ;  and  under 
Buonaparte,  he  is  become  a  senator,  and  a  commander  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour.  I  am  told  that  he  has  made  all  his  money 
by  his  connexions  with  your  country  ;  but  I  know  that  the  fa- 
vourite of  Napoleone  can  never  be' the  friend  of  Great-Britain. 
He  is  a  widower  ;  but  Mademoiselle  Mars,  of  the  Emperor's 
theatre,  consoles  him  for  the  loss  of  his  wife. 

General  Marmont  accompanied  Buonaparte  to  Egypt,  and 
distinguished  himself  at  the  capture  of  Malta,  and  when,  in  the 
following  year,  the  siege  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre  was  undertaken,  he 
was  ordered  to  extend  the  fortifications  of  Alexandria ;  and  if,  in 
1801,  they  retarded  your  progress,  it  was  owing  to  his  abilities  ; 
being  an  officer  of  engineers,  as  well  as  of  the  artillery.  He  re- 
turned with  Buonaparte  to  Europe,  and  was,  after  his  usurpation, 
made  a  counsellor  of  state.  At  the  battle  of  Marengo  he  com- 
manded the  artillery,  and  signed,  afterwards  with  the  Austrian 
General,  Count  Hohenzollern,  the  armistice  of  Treviso,  which 
preceded  shortly  the  peace  of  Luneville.  Nothing  has  abated 
Buonaparte's  attachment  to  this  officer,  whom  he  appointed  a 
commander  in  chief  in  Holland,  when  a  change  of  government 
was  intended  there  ;  and  whom  he  will  entrust  every  where  else, 
where  sovereignty  is  to  be  abolished,  or  thrones  and  dynasties 
subverted. 


LETTER  LXXVII. 

Paris >,   October,   1805, 

MY   LORD, 

MANY  wise  people  are  of  opinion,  that  the  Revolution  of  ano- 
ther great  empire  is  necessary  to  combat  or  oppose  the  great 
impulse  occasioned  by  the  Revolution  in  France,  before  Europe 
can  recover  its  long  lost  order  and  repose.  .Had  the  subjects  of 
Austria  been  as  disaffected  as  they  are  loyal,  the  wsrld  might 


334  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

have  witnessed  such  a  terrible  event,  and  been  enabled  to  judge 
whether  the  hypothesis  was  the  production  of  an  ingenious 
schemer,  or  of  a  profound  statesman.  Our  armies,  under  Buona- 
parte, have  never  before  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  a  country 
where  subversion  was  not  prepared,  and  where  subversion  did 
not  follow. 

How  relatively  insignificant  in  the  eyes  of  Providence,  must- 
be  the  independence  of  states,  and  the  liberties  of  nations,  when 
such  a  relatively  insignificant  personage  as  General  Mack  can 
shake  them  ?  Have  then  the  Austrian  heroes,  a  Prince  Eugene, 
a  Laudon,  a  Lasci,  a  Beaulieu,  a  Haddick,  a  Bender,  a  Clairfayt, 
and  numerous  other  valiant  and  great  warriors,  left  no  posterity 
behind  them  ?  Or  has  the  presumption  of  General  Mack  impos- 
ed upon  the  judgment  of  the  counsellors  of  his  Prince  ?  This 
latter  must  have  been  the  case  ;  how  otherwise  could  the  wel- 
fare of  their  sovereign  have  been  entrusted  to  a  military  quack, 
whose  want  of  energy,  and  bad  dispositions,  had  in  1799  deliver- 
ed up  the  capital  of  another  sovereign  to  his  enemies.  How  many 
reputations  are  gained  by  an  impudent  assurance,  and  lost  when 
the  man  of  talents  is  called  upon  to  act,  and  the  fool  presents 
himself. 

Baron  de  Mack  served  as  an  aide-de-camp  under  Field-Mar- 
shal Laudon,  during  the  last  war  between  Austria  and  Turkey, 
and  displayed  some  intrepidity,  particularly  before  Lissa.  The 
Austrian  army  was  encamped  eight  leagues  frorri  that  place, 
and  the  commander  in  chief  hesitated  to  attack  it,  believing  it 
to  be  defended  by  thirty  thousand  men.  To  decide  him  upon 
making  this  attack,  Baron  de  Mack  left  him  at  nine  o'clock  at 
night,  crossed  the  Danube,  accompanied  only  by  a  single  hou- 
lan.  and  penetrated  into  the  suburb  of  Lissa,  where  he  made  pri- 
soner a  Turkish  officer,  whom,  on  the  next  morning  at  seven 
o'clock,  he  presented  to  his  general,  and  from  whom  it  was  learnt, 
that  the  garrison  contained  only  six  thousand  men.  This  per- 
sonal temerity,  and  the  applause  of  Field-Marshal  Laudon,  pro- 
cured him  then  a  kind  of  reputation  which  he  has  not  since 
been  able  to  support.  Some  theoretical  knowledge  of  the  art  of 
war,  and  a  great  facility  of  conversing  on  military  topics,  made 
even  the  Emperor  Joseph  conceive  a  high  opinion  of  this  officer  ; 
but  it  has  long  been  proved,  and  experience  confirms  it  every 


COURT  OF  ST.  CLOUD,  3'j;» 

day,  that  the  difference  is  immense  between  the  speculator  and 
the  operator  ;  and  that  the  generals  of  cabinets  are  often  indiffe- 
rent captains,  when  in  the  eamp  or  in  the  field. 

Preceded  by  a  certain  celebrity,  Baron  de  Mack  served  in  1793 
under  the  Prince  of  Cobourg,  as  an  adjutant-general,  and  was 
called  to  assist  at  the  Congress  at  Antwerp,  where  the  opera- 
tions of  the  campaign  were  regulated.-— Every  where  he  dis- 
played activity  and  bravery  ;  was  wounded  twice  in  the  month 
of  May  ;  but  he  left  the  army  without  having  performed  any 
thing  that  evinced  the  talents  which  fame  had  bestowed  on  him. 
In  February,  1794,  the  Emperor  sent  him  to  London,  to  arrange 
in  concert  with  your  government,  the  plans  of  the  campaign  then 
on  the  eve  of  being  opened  ;  and  when  he  returned  to  the  Low 
Countries,  he  was  advanced  to  a  quarter-master-general  of  the 
army  of  Flanders,  and  terminated  also  this  unfortunate  campaign, 
without  having  done  any  thing  to  justify  the  reputation  he  had 
before  acquired  or  usurped.  His  sovereign  continued  neverthe- 
less to  employ  him  in  different  armies;  and  in  January,  1797, 
he  was  appointed  a  field*marshal  lieutenant,  and  a  quarter-mas- 
ter-general of  the  army  of  the  Rhine.  In  February,  he  conduct- 
ed fifteen  thousand  of  the  troops  of  this  army  to  reinforce  the 
army  of  Italy  ;  but  when  Buonaparte  in  April  penetrated  into 
Styria  and  Carinthia,.  he  was  ordered  to  Vienna,  as  a  second  in 
command  of  the  levy  en  masse. 

Real  military  characters  had  already  formed  their  opinion  of 
this  officer,  and  seen  a  presumptuous  charlatan,  where  others 
had  admired  an  able  warrior.  His  own  conduct  soon  convinced 
them  that  they  neither  had  been  rash  nor  mistaken.  The  King 
of  Naples  demanding,  in  1798,  from  his  son-in-law,  the  Empe- 
ror of  Germany,  a  general  to  organize  and  head  his  troops,  Ba- 
ron de  Mack  was  presented  to  him.  After  war  had  been  declar- 
ed against  France,  he  obtained  some  success  in  partial  engage- 
ments, but  was  defeated  in  a  general  battle,  by  an  enemy  inferior 
in  number.  In  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  as  well  as  in  the  empire 
of  Germany,  the  fury  of  negotiation  s.  ized  him,  when  he  should 
have  fought,  and  when  he  should  have  remembered  that  no  com- 
pacts can  ever  be  entered  into  with  political  and  military  earth- 
quakes, more  than  with  physical  ones.  This  imprudence,  parti- 
cularly as  he  was  a  foreigner,  excited  suspicion  among  his  troops  ; 


336  SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE 

whom,  instead  of  leading  to  battle,  he  deserted,  under  the  pre- 
tence that  his  life  was  in  danger,  and  surrendered  himself  and 
his  staff  to  our  commander  Championet. 

A  general  who  is  too  fond  of  his  life,  ought  never  to  enter  a 
camp,  much  less  to  command  armies  ;  and  a  military  chief  who 
does  not  consider  the  honour  and  happiness  of  the  state  as  his 
first  passion  and  his  first  duty,  and  prefers  existence  to  glory, 
deserves  to  be  shot  as  a  traitor,  or  drummed  out  of  the  army  as 
a  dastardly  coward.  Without  mentioning  the  numerous  mili- 
tary faults  by  General  de  Mack,  during  this  campaign,  it  is  im- 
possible to  deny,  that  with  respect  to  his  own  troops,  he  con- 
ducted himself  in  the  most  pusillanimous  manner.  It  has  often 
been  repeated,  that  martial  valour  does  not  always  combine  with 
it  that  courage,  and  that  necessary  presence  of  mind,  which 
knows  how  to  direct  or  how  to  repress  multitudes,  how  to  com- 
mand obedience  and  obtain  popularity  ;  but  when  a  man  is  en- 
trusted with  the  safety  of  an  empire,  and  assumes  such  a  bril- 
Uant  situation,  he  must  be  weak-minded  and  despicable  indeed, 
if  he  does  not  show  himself  worthy  of  it,  by  endeavouring  to 
succeed,  or  perishing  in  the  attempt.  The  French  emigrant 
General  Dumas,  evinced  what  might  have  been  done,  even  with 
the  dispirited  Neapolitan  troops,  whom  he  neither  deserted,  nor 
with  whom  he  offered  to  capitulate. 

Baron  de  Mack  is  in  a  very  infirm  state  of  health,  and  is  often 
under  the  necessity  of  bting  carried  on  a  litter ;  and  his  bodily 
complaints  have  certainly  not  increased  the  vigour  of  his  mind. 
His  love  of  life  seems  to  augment  in  proportion  as  its  real  value 
diminishes.  As  to  the  report  here  of  his  having  betrayed  his  trust 
in  exchanging  honour  for  gold,  I  believe  it  totally  unfounded. 
Qur  intriguers  may  have  deluded  his  understanding,  but  our 
traitors  would  never  have  been  able  to  seduce  or  shake  his  fidel- 
ity. His  head  is  weak,  but  his  heart  is  honest.  Unfortunately  it 
is  too  true,  that  in  turbulent  times  irresolution  and  weakness  in 
a  commander,  or  a  minister,  operate  the  same,  and  are  as  dan- 
gerous as  treason. 


NOTICE  TO  THE  READER. 

The  following  pages  have  been  extracted  from  "  La  Voyageur 
Suisse"  u  The  female  Revolutionary  Plutarch,"  and  some  other 
recent  works  of  celebrity,  in  the  supposition  that  they  would  be 
appropriate  and  interesting. 

MADAME    DE    STAEL. 

THIS  celebrated  lady,  so  well  known  by  her  'writings*  ana 
her  conduct,  is  the  daughter  of  the  famous  financier,  Mr.  Neck 
er,  and  was  the  wife  of  the  late  Baron  cle  Stael  Von  Holstein, 
who  was,  during  the  revolution,  the  Swedish  ambassador  to 
France.  She  was  placed,  even  in  her  childhood,  under  the 
guidance  of  philosophical  governors  and  governesses  ;  and  not 
even  a  milliner,  a  music  or  dancing-master,  neither  a  valet  nor 
a  maid,  were  permitted  to  attend  her,  who  had  not  some  smatter- 
ing of  what  her  mamma  termed  philosophy.  Ideas,  already  dis- 
tracted by  premature  philosophical  speculations,  became  almost 
bewildered  by  a  rage  for  novel  reading.  She  is  said  to  have  de- 
voured, before  she  was  fifteen,  six  hundred  novels  in  three 
months,  and  to  have  fixed  on  as  many  different  characters  for 
husbands  as  she  had  been  admiring  romantic  heroes.  Love  or 
caprice  induced  h%r  at  last  to  terminate  her  indecision. 

She  was  two  years  younger  than  Baron  de  Stael,  then  , 
a  gentleman  attached  to  the  suite  of  the  Count  de  Creute, 
at  that  time  Swedish  ambassador.  The  Baron  she  consi- 
dered, from  his  modesty  and  timidity,  as  a  child  of  nature, 
and  concluded,  in  her  exalted  train  of  thought,  that  des- 
tiny had  sent"  him  purposely  twelve  hundred  miles  from 
his  home  to  procure  her  that  ideal  happiness,  on  which  she  had 
*o  often  meditated  by  day,  and  dreamt  at  night.  •  Many  matri- 
monial overtures  are  said  to  have  been  made  to  Mr.  and  Ma- 
•dame  Necker,  by  the  Montmorencys,  the  De  La  Rocjiefou- 
caults,  the  Perigords,  the  Luxemburghs,  and  others,  who  were 
more  attracted  by  the  great  fortune,  than  the  charms  of  the 
young  lady  ;  but  Mademoiselle  Necker  having,  by  the  advice  of 

*  She  has  written   "  An  Essay  on  the  Passions  ;"  Delphine,  ar- 
Literature  considered  in  its  connexions,"  &c. 


"  " 


e- 


S38  MADAME  DE  STAEL. 

her  mother,  been  left  to  choose  for  herself,  fixed  on  the  Bar 
as  the  only  person  on  earth  she  would  ever  marry.  This  nobl 
man,  though  of  a  very  ancient  family,  possessed  nothing  but  the 
trifling-  salary  of  a  gentleman  of  the  embassy.  lie  was  too  un- 
presuming  to  aspire  to  a  lady  for  whom  so  many  men  of  rank 
and  consequence  contended,  and  therefore  never  paid  her  any 
other  attention  than  what  common  civility  demanded.  When 
she  communicated  her  passion  for  the  Baron  to  her  parents,  they 
objected  to  it  the  last  mentioned  circumstance. — She  replied, 
that  she  would  either  live  the  wife  of  the  Swede,  or,  sooner  than 
they  expected,  die  a  maid.  To  convince  them  of  her  determi- 
nation, she  bought  a  brace  of  pistols,  wrote  letters  of  adieu,  and 
some  philosophical  discussions  on  the  comfort  and  glory  of  sui- 
cide. Madame  Necker  became  alarmed  when  informed  of  her 
philosophical  daughter's  serious  preparations  for  a  philosophical 
exit ;  and,  therefore,  prevailed  on  the  Count  de  Creutz  to  sound 
the  inclinations  of  the  Baron.  The  latter,  before  quitting  Swe- 
den, was  enamoured  of  his  second  cousin,  a  beautiful  young  lady, 
whom  he  had  promised  to  marry,  as  soon  as  his  circumstances 
permitted.  He  wrote  to  inform  her  of  his  situation,  and  that  a 
proposed  marriage  with  a  lady  he  could  not  love,  though  it  might 
render  him  unhappy,  might  relieve  his  family  from  poverty  and 
distress.  The  only  answer  he  received  was«  return  of  the  mar- 
riage contract,  stained  with  her  tears,  and  in  seven  weeks  she 
was  a  corpse. 

To  return  to  Mademoiselle  Necker. — When  the  Baron  and 
herself  were  left  alone  on  the  wedding  night,  he  began  to  un- 
dress, and  she  to  philosophise.  From  politeness,  he  listened. 
She  began  a  long  and  elaborate  speech  concerning  the  physical 
difference  of  corporeal  construction  in  the  two  sexes.  She  gave 
her  opinion  concerning  the  propagation  of  the  human  species 
from  the  creation  of  the  world  ;  which,  by  the  bye,  she  assured 
him,  .had  never  been  created,  but,  with  little  variation,  ever  had 
existed,  and  ever  would  continue  to  exist.  She  inclined  much 
t:o  the  opinion  that  the  globe  had  been  formerly  covered  with  ! 
water,  and  that  of  course  our  first  ancestors  were  either  fishes  or 
amphibious  animals. — "  But  my  dear,"  interrupted  the  Baron, 
Vt  us  go  to  bed,  it  is  getting  late."  "  Not  before  I  have  done 
these  interesting  topics,"  answered  the  Baroness, 


MADAME  DE  STAKL.  339 

{;  with  which  I  am  certain  you  and  your  countrymen  are  but  little 
acquainted.  For  example,  can  you  explain  how  a  foetus,  which 
ran  remain  in  the  womb  of  a  woman  for  nine  months  without  a 
breath  of  air,  will,  after  its  birth,  die  in  a  moment  for  want  of 
air,  if  shut  up  in  a  sack  or  in  a  drawer  ? — Your  silence  evinces 
your  ignorance,  and  your  yawning  your  want  of  genius.  Come, 
give  me  from  the  closet,  behind  you,  the  skeleton  Doctor  Sue  so 
kindly  lent  me,  and  I  will  in  a  moment  explain  the  whole  mys- 
tery." She  then  read  a  lecture  on  anatomy,  as  well,  and  with  as 
much  gravity  as  the  Doctor  himself  could  have  done.  How 
long  she  would  have  gone  on  thus  it  is  difficult  to  determine, 
had  not  the  snoring  of  the  Baron  interrupted  her,  and  shock c r 
her  to  the  highest  degree.  From  that  moment  she  conceived 
the  most  despicable  opinion  of  his  abilities,  and  of  his  desire  to 
improve  by  her  superior  capacity.  She  told  him  so,  and  conti- 
nued to  think  so  until  the  last  hour  of  his  life.  lie  begged  a 
thousand  pardons  for  his  inattention,  which  was  owing  entirely 
to  fatigue,  having  been  kept  up  almost  all  the  night  before  by  the 
lectures  of  her  mother  upon  nearly  the  same  subject.  He  en- 
treated her  to  go  to  bed,  as  it  was  nearly  day-light.  "  What 
would  the  world  say,"  retorted  she,  "  if  the  daughter  of  the 
great  philosophers,  Mr.  and  Madame  Necker,  and  a  philosopher 
herself,  should  pass  her  wedding  night  like  the  ignorant  daugh- 
ters of  a  common  mechanic  ?  No,  Sir,  do  not  put  the  philoso- 
phical wife  you  have  the  happiness  to  possess,  upon  the  same 

level  with  the  unlearned  Duchess  of  F ,  with  the  illiterate 

Marchioness  of  L ,  or  the  dull  Countess  of  C ,  who  all 

went  to  bed  on  their  wedding  nights  before  their  bridegrooms, 
without  either  reflecting,  conversing,  or  perhaps  thinking,  upon 
the  difference  between  the  married  and  unmarried  state,  and  its 
consequences  ;  being  as  little  informed  with  regard  to  the  physi- 
cal production  of  their  offspring,  as  rny  bitch  Bijou  is  of  the  lit- 
tering of  her  puppies.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  if  genera- 
tions of  fools  descend  frpfn  such  parents.  To  punish  you  for  your 
indocility,  I  shall  now  leave  you,  and  go  to  bed  in  uiy  former 
apartment.  If  you  do  not  listen  more  attentively  to  my  lectures 
to-morrow  night,  I  shall  remain  another  night  a  maid,  and  shall 
persevere  in  not  going  to  bed  with  you  till  I  conquer  your  obsti- 
nacy !"  The  Baron  prayed  and  entreated  in  vain  ;  away  she  went,. 


340  MADAME  DE  STAEL. 

and  the  next  day  at  dinner  published,  before  fifty  persons,  the  phi- 
losophical conduct  which  distinguished  her  nuptial  night  from 
that  of  the  vulgar  and  ignorant.  The  poor  Baron  blushed  ;  but 
her  father,  mother,  and  the  guests,  who  were  all  philosophers, 
applauded,  and  even  congratulated  him  upon  such  a  treasure  of 
a  wife.  It  is  said,  that  it  was  not  before  the  sixth  night  after 
his  marriage,  that  the  Baron  ceased  to  sleep  alone  ;  and  probably 
his  wife's  philosophical  stoicism  would  then  have  continued  for 
some  months,  had  he  not  threatened  to  return  to  Sweden,  sooner 
than  remain  the  laughing-stock  of  all  the  Parisians  who  were  not 
initiated  into  the  philosophical  secrets  of  the  philosophical  tribe. 
Madame  de  Stael  had  taken  care  every  morning  to  send  round  to 
her  friends  a  bulletin  of  her  connubial  proceedings,  as  a  proof  of 
the  power  of  reason  over  the  passions  in  a  strong  mind,  as  she  al- 
ways pretended  she  was  doatingly  fond  of  a  husband  she  so  un- 
feelingly exposed  to  pain,  as  well  as  to  ridicule  and  contempt. 
A  marriage  begun  under  sugh  inauspicious  circumstances,  was 
too  sure  an  omen  of  little  connubial  felicity.  For  the  first  year 
of  his  marriage,  report  says,  he  had  no  cause  to  suspect  the  fide- 
lity of  his  wife.  Indeed,  her  forbidding  ugliness,  her  pedantic 
and  affected  conversation,  and  her  phlegmatic  systematic  love, 
we  should  have  imagined  to  be  infallible  antidotes  to  the  desire  of 
the  libertine  seducer.  But  having,  in  her  marriage- settlement, 
reserved  her  whole  fortune  for  her  own  use,  she  had  some  pre- 
tended admirers  who  found  love  to  be  a  necessary  pretext  to  gain 
pecuniary  supplies.  Her  moral  character,  it  is  said,  became  in  a 
short  time  as  corrupt  as  her  social  one  was  disagreeable,  and  her 
matrimonial  one  insupportable.  Accused  of  being  as  little  deli- 
cate in  her  selection  of  lovers,  as  in  her  ideas  of  love,  she  was 
long  before  the  revolution,  worthy  and  ready  to  become  one  of 
its  instruments,  approvers,  and  heroines. 

The  plans  of  Gustavus  III.  of  Sweden,  in  1791,  for  restoring 
the  throne  of  France  to  its  former  independence,  were  necessa- 
rily communicated  to  Baron  de  Stael,  the  Swedish  ambassador  at 
Paris,  who  was  indiscreet  enough  to  reveal  them  to  his  wife, 
who  made  them  known  to  her  revolutionary  accomplices.  The 
intended  flight  of  Louis  XVI.  was  in  the  same  way  communicat- 
ed beforehand  to  the  revolutionary  leaders,  who  of  course  so  ar- 
ranged the  business,  that  he  should  depart  without  obstacle,  --md 


ANNETTE  LA  VIGNE.  341 

be  arrested  at  Varennes.  When  this  was  known  to  the  King  of 
Sweden,  the  Baron's  functions  were  instantly  at  an  end.  In  1793, 
the  reign  of  terror  of  the  philosophical  Robespierre  obliged  the 
philosophical  Baroness  to  fly  from  her  country  to  save  her  pre- 
cious life.  Still  her  revolutionary  fanaticism  had  not  subsided, 
and  she  maintained  an  uninterrupted  correspondence  with  Tal- 
leyrand, and  some  others,  who  were  suffered  to  reside  in  Eng- 
land. She  afterwards  returned  to  France,  and  was  busy  in  many, 
political  revolutionary  intrigues,  till  in  1797,  upon  an  invitation  of 
'he  then  minister  of  police,  Sottin,  she  was  induced  to  quit  the 
"French  republic.  The  frequent  difficulties  and  shameful  dis- 
grace into  which  her  restless  and  intriguing  disposition  had 
brought  her  husband,  had  induced  him  for  several  years  to  live  se- 
parate from  her.  Such  was,  however,  still  her  power  over  this 
weak  man,  that  a  wife  he  had  so  many  reasons  to  hate,  conti- 
nued, at  four  or  five  hundred  miles  distance,  to  manage  him  as 
much  as  if  by  his  side  ;  and  in  consequence,  during  November, 
1797,  he  had  several  narrow  escapes  from  the  Temple.  All 
these  vexations  and  humiliations  greatly  impaired  his  health, 
and  made  him,  with  the  richest  heiress- of  France  for  his  wife, 
one  of  the  most  wretched  husbands  in  the  world.  Some  time  after  the 
accession  of  Buonaparte  to  power,  Madame  de  Stael  was  given 
to  understand,  that  her  absence  would  be  agreeable,  as  Buona- 
parte could  not  endure  that  a  woman  of  her  immoral  character 
should  frequent  his  court.  This  seemed  to  be  the  more  cruel, 
as  Madame  de  Stael  had  been  profuse  in  her  panegyrics  upon  ' 
him.  Some  have,  however,  said,  that  Buonaparte  had  never  as- 
signed his  reasons  for  his  conduct  respecting  her:  perhaps,  he 
fears  her  restless,  innovating,  and  intriguing  spirit.  Her  exile 
still  continued  in  September,  1805. 


ANNETTE  LA  \IGNE,  THE  LYONESE  ORPHAN. 

THE  ruins  of  warehouses  and  manufactories,  and  the  rub- 
bish of  houses  demolished  at  Lyons  in  1793,  by  order  of  the  pre- 
sent senator  and  minister  of  police,  Fouche,  and  other  accom- 
plices of  Robespierre,  are  still  to  be  seen,  and  are  still  bewailed. 
Orphans  still  mourn  the  loss  of  those  parents  and  relatives- whom< 
this  graad  officer  of  B*aonaparte's  legion  of  honour,  and  his  ten* 

*g2 


542  ANNETTE  LA  VIGNL 

der  associates,  sent  to  be  guillotined,  drowned  or  shot.  Of  thru-.-; 
or  four  hundred  victims  condemned  m  ///a.s.sr,  it  never  happened 
that  the  grape-shot  of  the  cannon  did  not  maim  more  than  they 
killed.  The  agony  of  those  who  were  only  wounded  was,  there- 
fore, long,  and  almost  insufferable.  The  swords  of  gens-d'armen 
and  dragoons  were  employed  to  finish  what  the  cannons  had  lie- 
gun.  Those  condemned  to  be  shot,  were  marched  from  the 
town-hall  of  Lyons,  to  the  walk  of  Breteaux,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Rhone,  about  the  distance  of  a  mile.  At  the  place  of  exe- 
cution, they  were  ranked  in  two  files  along  two  rows  of  trees,  to 
which  they  were  fastened,  after  having  their  hands  tied  behind 
their  backs.  The  cannons,  planted  at  each  entry  of  the  walk, 
at  a  given  signal,  fired  at  once.  That  done,  the  gens-d'armesor 
dragoons  were  ordered  to  charge.  They  rode  over  the  dead  and 
•wounded,  cutting  and  hacking  as  long  as  they  observed  any  signs 
of  life.  Such  was  then  the  disgust  ot  "existence,  that  when  these 
files  of  victims  were  marching  to  Breteaux,  many  -volunteers 
frequently  intermixed  with  them  ;  and,  therefore,  when  the  ex- 
ecution was  over,  and  the  revolutionary  commissary  counted 
those  who  had  perished,  he  often  found  them  to  be  more  by  seve- 
ral dozens  than  those  who  had  been  condemned.  It  has  also  been 
stated,  that  when,  on  the  road  to  execution,  the  revolutionary  com- 
manders and  guards  remarked  any  individuals  that  displeased 
them,  or  with  whom  they  were  offended,  they,  without  furthep 
ceremony,  forced  them  to  enter  the  file,  to  be  shot  with  their  de- 
voted fellow-citizens. 

Time,  the  great  soother  of  all  evils,  has  now  lessened  the  hor- 
ror, though  not  erased  the  recollection,  of  these  abominable  deeds. 
But  in  1795  and  1796,  when  their  memory  was  fresh,  and  the 
wounds  still  bleeding,  the  sufferers  avenged  themselves  on  such 
of  their  barbarous  persecutors,  as  happened  to  fall  into  their 
hands  ;  because  the  laws,  impotent  or  indifferent,  either  could 
not  or  would  not  punish  them.  This  mode  of  retaliation  cannot 
be  justified,  and,  if  ever  excuseable,  is  only  so  when  the  villains 
in  power  screen  from  that  justice,  demanded  by  injured  inno- 
cence and  beggared  honesty,  the  assassins  they  have  employed, 
and  the  plunderers  with  whom  they  have  shared  the  spoil. 

In  the  latter  part  of  June,  1796,  (says  the  writer  of  this  arti- 
cle) I  was  at  Lyons,  and  lodged  at  the  Hotel  du  Pare,  near  tht 


ANNETTE  LA  ViGNE.  343 

of  Terrcaux.  I  dined  and  supped  at  the  ordinary,  \vherc 
violent  political  discussions  often  occurred,  and  the  Jacobins  were 
universally  execrated,  and  seldom,  if  ever,  defended.  One  even- 
ing, a  stranger  sat  down  to  supper,  who  had  the  imprudence  and 
impudent  audacity,  to  vindicate  and  highly  applaud  the  sangui- 
nary massacres,  perpetrated  dm  ing  the  reign  of  terror,  by  the 
Jacobins  at  Lyons.  He  was,  of  course,  not  only  insulted  by  eve- 
ry  body,  but  challenged  to  fight  with  pistols,  by  a  beautiful  young 
lady,  dressed  in  man's  clothes.  Instead  of  declining  the  chal- 
lenge in  a  decent  manner,  he  answered  her  in  the  grossest  and 
most  vulgar  language,  and  inspired,  by  his  conduct,  a  general 
contempt  and  indignation.  When  interrogated  who  he  was, 
he  boldly  answered,  "  I  am  a  native  of  Corsica,  the  cousin  of 
the  great  Buonaparte,  the  conqueror  of  Italy.  IVIy  name  is 
llistriu.  I  assisted  my  cousin  in  dispatching  the  Touloncse 
royalists,  was  imprisoned  with  him  as  a  terrorist  at  Nice,  and 
and  was  ofterwards  exiled  by  the  committee  of  public  safety,  to 
my  native  island.  I  am  now  called  to  Paris,  being  appointed  an 
aide-de-camp  to  citizen  Barras,  the  director." 

The  next  morning  I  went  out  early,  to  take  a  walk  along  the 
bank  of  the  river  Rhone,  when  I  observed  the  young  lady  in 
man's  apparel,  advancing  rapidly  towards  me,  with  her  hand  in 
her  bosom.  On  her  nearer  approach,  I  saw  she  had  hold  of 
either  a  pistol  or  a  dagger.  I  therefore  prepared  to  defend  my- 
self:  but,  after  looking  in  my  face,  she  said,  «  I  beg  your  pur- 
don,  Sir,  for  having  caused  you  any  alarm.  I  was  looking,  not 
tor  you,  but  for  the  cowardly  Corsican,  who  behaved  so  brutally 
to  me  last  night.  lie  intends  to  embark  this  morning,  in  the 
bout  of  the  Paris  Diligence.  I  am  watching  for  him."  I  tried  to 
calm  her  extreme  agitation,  by  telling  her  that  her  beauty  and 
accomplishments  were  above  the  attacks  of  a  low  sans-culotte 
Jacobin.  "  Sir,"  answered  she,  "  I  might  have  forgiven  his  bru- 
lality,  had  not  the  jacobins  murdered  my  father,  my  mother, 
three  brothers  and  two  sisters  ;  nothing  but  my  absence  from 
this  city  saved  myself."  As  she  ended  these  words,  she  ran 
away  towards  a  man  at  some  distance,  accompanied  by  a  porter 
carrying  his  baggage.  I  followed  as  fast  as  I  could,  but  the 
Corsican  Histria  lay  already  weltering  in  his  blood.  As  she 
withdrew,  she  said  to  me,  «  Sir,"  he  has  refused  to  fight  me 


344  ANNETTE  LA  VIGNE 

honourably.  Had  he  been  in  authority,  I  should  therefore  certainly- 
have  been  assassinated.  I  have  prevented  it,  by  giving  him  seven 
wounds,  one  for  each  relative  I  have  lost,  by  the  atrocities  of  his 
accomplices."  The  wounded  jacobin  was  carried  to  a  hospital, 
where  his  wounds  were  judged  not  mortal,  but  a  few  days  af- 
terwards, a  person,  calling  himself  an  acquaintance  was  permit 
ted  to  visit  him,  and  shot  him  through  the  heart. 

Shortly  after,  I  met  her  in  the  Breteaux,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhone.  "  In  these  trees,"  said  she,  "  you  still  see  the  marks  of 
the  grape-shot.  Here  my  good  and  unfortunate  father  and  mo- 
ther were  shot  together,  and  beneath  the  very  turf  on  which 
we  tread,  their  remains  repose.  My  poor  sisters  were  put 
in  requisition  to  bury  those  so  much  loved  and  deplored,  but 
in  three  days  after,  they,  in  their  turn,  were  executed  and  buried 
in  the  same  spot.  The  ruins  of  that  large  house  on  the  other 
side  of  the  bridge  of  Morant,  are  those  of  my  paternal  dwelling, 
where  I  was  born.  I  left  it  five  years  ago,  when  only  twelve 
years  of  age.  It  was  then  just  newly  painted,  and  fresh  deco- 
rated for  a  ball  given  by  my  good  mother,  to  our  relatives  and- 
friends,  on  the  eve  of  my  departure  for  Switzerland,  whither  I 
was  sent  for  my  education.  At  this  ball  forty-four  persons  dan- 
ced, all  happy,  independent  and  rich,  and  worthy  to  be  so.  At 
my  return  last  month,  I  found  only  two  of  them  alive,  one  of 
whom  is  mad  and  the  other  a  beggar.  I  am  myself  without  a 
house,  without  a  relative  on  earth,  and  almost  without  a  friend. 
Tormented  by  the  remembrance  of  the  past,  suffering  under  the 
pressure  of  present  calamities,  and  hopeless  of  the  future,  I  must 
renounce  all  ideas  of  happiness  on  this  side  of  the  grave.  In 
vain  do  I  claim  the  trifling  relics  of  the  property,  that  has  escap- 
ed the  rapacity  of  the  murderers  of  my  family.  In  vain  do  I 
invoke  upon  them  the  vengeance  of  the  laws.  I  have  wearied 
myself  in  petitioning,  both  by  letters  and  by  personal  application, 
and  am  no  further  advanced,  thaiv  I  was  the  first  day  I  again  set 
foot  in  my  degraded  and  blood-stained  country.  In  a  few  days,  I 
^hallno  longer  possess  the  means  of  subsistence.  It  is  perfectly 
indifferent,  whether  I  die  on  the  scaffold,  by  the  hands  of  the  exe- 
cutioner, or  as  a  suicide,  by  my  own  hands." 

This  young  woman  had  a  lover  then  in  Paris,  by  the  name  of 
De  Chataignej  of  a  very  respectable  family,  whose  parents  and 


MARTHA  GLAR,  045 

brother  fell  under  the  axe  of  the  guillotine.  Some  time  after 
the  occurrence  just  mentioned,  when  the  new  Revolution  in  fa- 
vour of  the  Jacobins  had  taken  place,  in  September,  1797,  An- 
nette La  Vigne  was  arrested,  and  ordered  to  be  tried  by  a  mili- 
tary commission.  De  Chataigne,  however,  not  only  accused 
himself  of  the  murder  of  Histria,  but  had  bought  over  witnesses 
to  prove  the  fact.  He  was,  therefore,  condemned  and  shot,  and 
Annette  was  released  ;  but  no  sooner  did  she  hear  what  had  hap- 
pened to  De  Chataigne,  to  whom  she  had  been  a  short  time  mar- 
ried, than  she  presented  herself  before  the  military  commission, 
blew  out  the  brains  of  the  president  with  one  pistol,  and  her  own 
with  the  other.  All  Lyons  said  that  the  president  deserved  his 
fate,  because  he,  as  \vell  as  the  whole  city,  knew  that  De  Cha- 
taigne was  innocent,  and  sacrificed  himself  to  save  the  life  of  a 
woman  he  ado  red. 


SKETCH  OF   THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  SWITZERLAND,  AND  MARTHA 
GLAR,   THE   SWISS    HEROINE, 

THE  conquest  of  the  virtuous,  peaceful,  and  happy  little  Re- 
public of  Switzerland,  by  the  intrigues,  still  more  than  by  the 
arms  of  France  ;  the  total  subversion  of  all  their  republican'  in- 
stitutions, by  a  nation  professing  to  be  republican  ;  the  shameful, 
perfidious  and  diabolical  arts,  which  the  French  employed,  to 
corrupt  the  principles  and  to  lull  the  apprehensions  of  the  Swiss  ; 
the  shameless  mockery  of  liberty  by  the  French  ruffian  slaves, 
who,  gorged  with  plunder,  and  their  hands  still  reeking  with  the 
blood  of  the  victims  of  their  tyranny,  preached  the  rights  of  man 
to  the  free  shepherds  of  Schweitz,  the  code  of  nature  to  the  sim- 
ple mountaineers  of  the  Alps,  and  public  morals  to  tribes,  whom 
even  the  very  -virtues  of  Parisian  emperors,  senators,  legislators, 
kc.  would  turn  paie  with  horror  ;  the  perfidy  of  the  French, 
who,  with  the  smiles  of  friendship,  on  their  faces,  and  the  sooth- 
ing expressions  of  brotherly  affection  on  their  lips,  stabbed  the 
unsuspecting  victims  they  had  decoyed  ;  are  novelties  so  mon- 
strous, that  future  ages  will,  perhaps,  imagine  them  unworthy 

of,  belief. 

It  would  be  polluting  the  public  ear,  to  record  all  the  horrid 

outrages  which  maiked  the  path  of  the  French  in  Switzerland, 


:  46  MARTHA  GLAR. 

Rut,  exposed  as  this  country  is  to  the  desolating  arms*  and. 
what  is  infinitely  worse,  to  the  contaminating  intrigues  of  the 
Trench,  who,  under  the  iron  rod  of  a  Napoleone  the  First,  are  in- 
fluenced by  the  same  spirit  as  under  the  terrific  reign  of  a  Robe- 
spierre, and  who,  at  both  periods,  were  alike  free,  and  equally 
guided  by  the  same  infernal  desire  of  exterminating  happiness 
and  true  liberty,  a  slight  notice  of  some  traits  of  their  proceed- 
ings may  not  be  thought  uninteresting  or  useless. 

The  wife  of  an  inn-keeper  at  the  village  of  Lohne,  was,  in 
February,  1798,  nearly  crucified  by  a  party  of  French  soldiers, 
and  expired  under  their  brutality.  Two  young  ladies  of  a  very 
respectable  family  at  Fribourg,  were  overtaken,  in  travelling  to 
visit  a  relative,  by  twenty-five  French  hussars,  who,  after  com- 
mitting the  most  indecent  beastly  outrages  upon  them,  killed 
them.  They  were  found  dead  on  the  public  highway.  Hun- 
dreds of  women  suffered  such  infamous  treatment,  and  their 
lifeless,  naked  bodies  were  thrown  unburied  into  the  woods.  At 
Sickthal,  a  company  of  grenadiers  entered  the  house  of  the  mi- 
nister, whom  they  tied  to  the  post  of  the  very  bed  upon  which 
they  violated,  under  his  eyes,  his  wife  and  three  daughters,  the 
youngest  only  nine  years  of  age.  All  four,  after  a  few  hours  of 
insensibility,  expired.  He,  the  most  wretched  of  husbands  and 
fathers,  survived  them  but  two  days'.  In  one  of  the  smaller  can- 
tous,  one  of  these  French  monsters,  not  being  able  to  overcome 
l&e  resistance^  a  woman  big  with  child,  plunged  his  sabre  into 
her  heart.  The  relations  of  this  poor  young  victim,  having 
caught  the  alarm  at  her  cries,  and  cut  the  wrists  of  her  ravisher, 
their  merited  vengeance  was  proclaimed  by  general  Brune,  as 
an  inexpiable  crime.  He  excited  the  fury  of  his  soldiers,  who} 
after  ravishing  every  female,  and  murdering  all  the  men,  threw 
them  all  together,  the  wounded  with  the  dead,  into  the  flames  of 
their  burning  dwellings.  A  competition  of  rapine  was  estab- 
lished between  the  French  civil  and  military  agents  and  their 
satellites.  From  the  plundered  canton  of  Soleure,  the  French 
troops  spread  themselves  over  the  country  of  the  canton  of 
Berne.  Above  thirty  villages,  in  the  space  of  several  leagues,  were 
given  up  to  pillage  ;  country-houses,  town-houses,  farms,  and 
even  cottages,  stripped  from  top  to  bottom  ;  and  that  part  of  their 
furniture,  which  could  not  be  carried  off,  broken  to  pieces, 


MARTHA  GLAR.  S47 

T 

mansion  of  Jeggistorf,  inhabited  by  an  old  lady  of  sixty,  having 
been  pillaged  by  some  hussars,  they  left  her  her  library,  lineu, 
and  pictures ;  but  the  officers  \vho  came  up  afterwards,  loaded 
their  waggons  with  them.  At  Berne,  in  virtue  of  the  respect 
promised  by  general  Brune  \.Q  persons  and  property,  all  who  were 
found  in  the  streets  by  the  French  on  their  entering,  were  strip- 
ped ;  money,  watches,  jewels,  and  even  handkerchiefs  and  hats, 
composed  this  first  booty.  The  cellars  broke  open,  victuals  seiz- 
ed, and  thefts  committed  in  most  houses,  were  but  an  earnest  of 
what  they  intended.  In  the  night  of  the  5th  of  March,  1798, 
the  French  banditti  fell  on  the  adjacent  country,  and  three  hun- 
dred hotises  were  broken  open,  and  plundered.  The  low  town 
of  Fribourg,  and  the  neighbouring  places,  met  the  same  fate. 
The  atrocities  of  the  Generals  who  were  witnesses  to  the  pillage, 
exceeded  those  of  their  soldiers,  and,  therefore,  they  neither 
chastised  nor  restrained  them.  General  Brune,  indeed,  estab- 
lished a  market  for  protection.  He  opened  a  tariff,  where  the 
villainy  of  the  theft  was  atoned  for,  by  suffering  the  inhabitants 
to  ransom  their  property,  and  the  General  himself,  thereby  de- 
frauded his  brothers  in  arms.  That  the  French  did  not  com- 
pletely strip  the  whole  country,  was  owing  not  to  their  mercy,  but 
entirely  to  the  despair  of  the  inhabitants,  and  the  number  of  ruf- 
fian plunderers  whom  they  exterminated.  But  general  Brune 
very  soon  caused  these  first  ravages  to  be  little  thought  of.  Imi- 
tating the  conduct  of  Buonaparte  at  Milan,  Modena,  and  Bologna, 
he,  without  taking  inventories,  or  minutes,  or  giving  any  re- 
ceipts, seized  the  state  treasure,  at  Berne,  and  swallowed  up  all 
the  public  banks,  and  also  the  private  ones  of  the  best  families. 
He  took  away  the  magazines,  the  public  funds,  and  the  arsenals. 
Immense  collections  of  corn,  wine,  and  ammunition,  three  hun- 
dred pieces  of  artillery,  an  armoury  for  forty  thousand  men,  the 
cannon  foundery,  and  even  the  commonest  utensils,  did  not  es- 
cape the  griping  hands  of  that  robber.  Fribourg  and  Soleure, 
witnessed  a  repetition  of  the  same  oppressions.  But  amidst  these 
gloomy  scones,  it  is  some  consolation  to  the  virtuous,  to  take  a 
I'etrospect  of  actions  which  do  honour  to  human  nature.  In  Fe- 
bruary, 1798,  in  the  environs  of  Berne,  eight  hundred  women 
took  up  arms,  and  gained  the  last  battles.  At  Frauenbrun,  two 
hundred  and  sixty  women  and  girls,  received  the  enemy  with 


343  MARTHA  GLAR. 

scythes,  pitchforks,  and  pick-axes,  of  whom  one  hundred  and 
eighty  were  killed.  The  same  scene  was  acted  at  Neweneg, 
at  Laupen,  and  at  Lengnau.  In  the  battalion  of  Oberlancl, 
which  defended  the  last  place,  there  was  a  man  serving  with 
three  sons,  and  seven  grandsons,  all  of  whom  lost  their  lives.— 
One  glorious  action  equalled  even  the  memorable  sacrifice  of  the 
Spartans  at  Thermopylae.  Eight  hundred  Swiss  youths  devoted 
themselves  to  death.  Overpowered  by  numbers,  they  refused 
•quarter  ;  seven,  who  escaped  the  first  carnage,  disdained  to  live 
slaves,  and  rushing  into  the  ranks  of  their  enemies,  perished 
under  the  ruins  of  their  country.  In  the  same  battle,  disarmed 
women  threw  themselves  on  the  cannon  of  the  French,  and  clung 
to  the  wheels,  to  prevent  them  from  advancing,  and  suffered 
themselves  to  be  cut  to  pieces,  sooner  than  let  go  their  hold. 

In  the  lower  district  of  the  canton  of  Underwalden,  about  1 500 
Swiss  took  up  arms,  and,  without  the  smallest  hope  of  any  other 
aid,  prepared  to  resist  the  whole  French  force,  and  to  die  rather 
than  live  slaves.  Having  entrenched  themselves  on  the  borders 
of  the  lake,  and  at  the  entrance  of  the  valley  of  Stantz,  with  their 
women  and  children,  they  firmly  awaited  the  attack.  The 
French  advanced  to  the  assault  in  separate  columns,  some  cross- 
ing the  lake  in  armed  vessels,  and  others  marching  over  the 
mountains.  On  the  9th  of  September,  1798,  the  invaders  were 
repulsed  in  several  different  onsets,  and  two  vessels  being  sunk 
with  five  hundred  men,  the  French  were  intimidated,  and  refus- 
ed to  proceed,  until  a  party,  encouraged  by  the  promises,  and 
urged  by  the  threats  of  their  General,  disembarked  and  forced 
the  intrenchments.  At  the  same  time,  two  other  columns 
landed  at  different  points,  and  the  French  corps,  rushing  from 
the  mountains,  fell  upon  their  rear.  The  small,  but  heroic  band 
of  Swiss,  confined  in  a  narrow  defile,  and  surrounded  by  a  force 
ten  times  their  number,  sustained  the  assault  with  unparalleled 
courage.  "  Then  began,"  says  an  eye-witness  of  the  desperate 
conflict,  "  the  battle  and  the  carnage.  Our  rustic  heroes  fire  on 
every  side,  fight  foot  to  foot,  rush  among  the  enemy's  rank,  slay 
and  are  slain.  These  strong  mountaineers  were  seen  pressing 
officers  to  death  in  their  nervous  arms.  Old  men,  women  and 
children,  roused  by  the  noble  example,  and  catching  the  .enthu- 
siasm of  their  sons,  husbands  and  fathers,  appeared,  throwing 


MARTHA  GLAR.  349 

themselves  into  the  midst  of  the  French  battalions,  after  arming 
themselves  with  clubs,  pikes,  pieces  of  muskets,  nay,  the  very 
scattered  limbs  of  human  bodies,  and  falling  with  the  satisfac-? 
tion  of  having  fought  to  preserve  their  country  from  a  hateful 
foreign  yoke."  The  French,  exasperated  by  this  incredible  re- 
sistance, put  to  the  sword  not  only  their  opponents  on  the  field  of 
battle,  but  every  Swiss  they  found,  sparing  neither  old  men,  wo- 
men, nor  children  ;  and  the  valley,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  be- 
came a  prey  to  pillage,  flames  and  carnage.  Two  hundred  na- 
tives of  the  canton  of  Schweitz,  hearing  the  cannonade,  were 
ashamed  of  having  deserted  their  brethren,  and  hastily  arming 
themselves,  forced  the  post  which  the  French  had  established  at 
Brunnen,  and  towards  the  end  of  the  day,  approaching  Stantz, 
saw  the  conflagration  that  plainly  told  the  fatal  event  of  the  ac* 
tion.  They  devoted  themselves  to  revenge  the  fate  of  their 
countrymen,  and,  after  killing  above  six  hundred  of  their  ene- 
mies, fell,  themselves,  on  the  field  of  battle.  "  Many  of  those 
brave  people,"  said  the  French  officer  who  delivered  the  Swiss 
standards  to  the  Directory,  "  without  any  arms  but  scythes  and 
clubs,  placing  themselves  at  the  mouths  of  the  cannon,  were 
mowed  down  with  grape-shot,  and  rejected  the  quarter  which 
v/as  offered  them  from  humanity." 

In  the  defence  of  their  native  land,  the  women  took  an  heroic 
part.  Among  the  many  Swiss  heroines,  whose  names  are 
btill  in  the  mouth  of  every  friend  of  liberty  and  honour  in  the 
Helvetian  Alps,  is  that  of  Martha  Glar,  a  daughter,  grand- 
daughter,  wife,  sister,  mother  and  grand-mother  of  shepherds ; 
of  those  innocent  citizens,  whose  retired  and  obscure  lives,  until 
they  were  visited  by  the  French,  passed  in  hard  labour,  but  in 
honest  independence.  Martha  Glar,  when  in  February,  1798, 
her  husband  had  marched  with  all  other  farmers,  peasants^  and 
shepherds,  against  an  approaching  enemy,  assembled  round  her 
of  a  Sunday,  in  the  church-yard,  all  the  women  and  girls,  of  the 
same  parish,  and  thus  addressed  them.  "Daughters  of  William 
Tell !  The  time  is  now  at  hand  when  you  may  prove  yourselves 
worthy  descendants  of  that  hero,  of  that  father,that  deliverer  of  his 
country.  When  our  country  was  in  peace  with  all  nations, 
friends  with  all  people,  and  encroaching  on  the  rights  of  none, 
those  detestable  Frenchmen,  with  whose  vicinity  Providence  has 

Hh 


350  MARTHA  GLAR. 

punished  us  for  our  sins  ;  those  scourges  of  mankind  have  dared 
to  threaten  us  with  the  same  shameful  yoke,  and  the  same  fet- 
ters, which  degrade  themselves.  Our  fathers,  our  husbands, 
our  brothers,  our  sons,  and  our  friends,  are  already  advancing  to 
oppose"  them.  If  our  defenders  are  defeated  by  superior  num- 
bers, will  you  suffer  those  criminals  to  reduce  you  to  bondage, 
will  you  be  the  mistresses  or  servants  of  those  monsters,  who, 
in  this  barbarous,  unprovoked  manner,  have  made  you  childless, 
orphans,  and  widows  ?  No !  I  see  your  countenances  beam  with 
patriotic  indignation  ;  I  hear  you  cry— never,  never !  rather 
death — a  thousand  deaths.  I  feel  the  bones  of  our  ancestors, 
deposited  in  this  sacred  place,  rattling  with  horror  under  me. 
Hark,  I  hear  them  call  loudly  to  us—"  Daughters  of  freemen  ! 
die,  or  bequeath  to  your  children  the  happiness  and  liberty  you 
inherited  from  your  fathers."— Yes,  I  see  the  heavenly  spirit  of 
William  Tell  descend,  and  inspire  us  to  perform  what  we  owe 
to  our  country,  to  our  families,  to  our  sacred  cause,  and  to  our- 
selves." (Let  us  arm,  let  us  march,  and  give  battle  to  the  ene- 
my, resounded  from  all  parts.)  "  I  glory,"  continued  Martha 
Glar,  "  at  hearing  your  noble  determination.  Ages  yet  unborn 
will  record  your  patriotism  and  valour.— I  cannot,  however,  pre- 
sent you  either  with  embroidered  standards,  with  decorated  hel- 
mets, or  with  glittering  arms  j  but,  in  the  day  of  battle,  do  not 
lose  sight  of  Martha  Glar,  her  daughters  and  her  grand-daugh- 
ters ;  they  will  always  serve  as  a  rallying  point  to  conduct  you 
to  the  path  of  honour  and  of  glory.  Should  victory  not  crown 
our  efforts,  we  solemnly  swear  not  to  survive  our  defeat ;  with 
you,  my  countrymen,  we  swear,  before  the  ever-living  God,  to 
conquer  or  to  die,  to  live  or  to  perish  with  the  freedom  and  hap- 
piness of  our  country/* 

A  short  time  after,  at  the  battle  of  Frauenbrun,  on  the  3d  of 
March,  1798,  Martha  Glar,  after  achieving  prodigies  of  valour, 
was,  at  the  age  of  64,  slain,  together  with  two  daughters  and 
three  grand-daughters,  (of  whom  the  youngest  was  scarcely  ten 
years  old)  by  the  side  of  her  father,  husband,  brother,  and  two 
sons,  who  all  died  together  on  the  bed  of  honour.  Of  the  two 
hundred  and  sixty  women  excited  to  arms  by  her  example,  one 
hundred  and  eighty  perished,  and  the  remainder  were  carried 
wounded  or  mutilated  from  the  field  of  battle.  Unhappy  Swit* 
still  groaning  under  the  merciless  tyranny  of  the  French) 


MARTHA  GLAR.-  351 

is  not  permitted  to  consecrate  a  monument  of  gratitude  and  ad- 
miration to  the  memory  of  those  heroes  and  heroines  who  fell 
amidst  the  last  sighs  of  Helvetic  liberty. 

May  the  sad  fate  of  the  simple,  virtuous,  and  unoffending 
Swiss  republics,  be  a  solemn  warning  to  all  other  states  and  king- 
doms, to  guard  in  early  hour  against  the  evils  of  disunion 
amongst  themselves,  and  the  perfidious  machinations  of  the 
French. 

Gen.  Brune,  and  the  secret  emissaries  of  France,  had  long 
been  endeavouring,  and  not  in  vain,  to  disseminate  the  seeds  of 
corruption.  By  their  arts,  they  produced  treachery  in  some,  in- 
difference in  others,  and,  what  was  worse  than  all,  a  fatal  lethar- 
gy, and  a  blindness  to  approaching  danger  in  the  great  body 
of  the  citizens.  Nor  did  the  fiend-like  artifices  of  the  French 
end  here.  When  at  last  the  Swiss  opened  their  eyes  to  their 
danger,  when  they  raised  the  standard  of  defence,  and  endea- 
voured  to  save  their  unhappy  land,  Gen.  Brune,  by  his  secret 
plots,  contrived  to  sow  dissentions  in -the  senate,  to  produce  a 
variance  between  it  and  their  generals,  and,  in  order  to  surprise 
them  in  their  sleep,  he  prevailed  on  them  to  conclude  an  armis- 
tice, under  the  promise  of  peaceful  negotiation.  During  this 
armistice,  he  attacked  them  suddenly,  while  off  their  guard, 
and  thus  completed  the  ruin  of  the  republics  of  Helvetia. 

On  another  important  occasion,  his  perfidy  was  equally  con- 
spicuous and  successful.  On  the  eve  of  a  general  engagement 
between  the  two  armies,  Brune  caused  many  of  his  soldiers,  who 
had  acquaintances  in  the  Swiss  camp,  to  write  to  them,  under  the 
pretence  of  giving  them  a  friendly  caution  for  their  safety. 
These  were  the  expressions  which  he  dictated.  "  As  you  value 
your  life,  do  not  fight  to-morrow.  You  are  betrayed  by  your 
commanders,  and  if  you  lift  your  hands  against  the  French,  in- 
evitable death  awaits  you."  These  few  words,  conveyed  in  a 
mysterious  manner  among  different  bodies  of  the  Swiss  troops,  had 
an  instantaneous  electric  effect.  Each  man  feared  his  comrade 
as  a  traitor ;  each  one  thought  the  army  betrayed  by  its  chiefs  ; 
every  arm  was  paralysed,  and  they  fell  an  easy  prey  to  their 
greedy  enemies. 

When  the  free,  prosperous,  and  happy  republic  of  the  United 
States  of  America  shajl,  as  it  must,  in  the  course  of  a  very 


352  MADAME  TALLEYRAND. 

short  time,  be  exposed  to  the  threats  of  Gallic  tyranny  ;  when 
they  shall  be  doomed  by  Napoleone  to  crouch  servilely  undep 
the  galling  yoke  of  a  cruel  and  blood-thirsty  despotism  ;  when 
the  lives  of  all  our  citizens,  of  property  and  influence,  must  be 
sacrificed  to  make  room  for  petty  tyrants,  who  thirst  for  their  of- 
fices, and  for  their  wealth  ;  we,  like  the  Swiss,  shall,  perhaps, 
open  our  eyes  to  the  dangers  that  surround  us,  when  too  late  j 
when  resistance  would  be  folly.  God  grant  this  sad  prediction 
may  not  be  verified  ;  God  grant  that  we  may  be  guarded  in  time 
both  against  French  intrigues  and  arms,  and  that,  at  least,  the 
present  generation  may  not  be  witnesses  of  the  ruin  of  their 
country. 


MADAME    TALLEYRAND. 

MADAME  GRAND,  the  present  Madame  Talleyrand, 
was  born  in  a  Danish  settlement  in  the  East  Indies,  in  1764,  and 
is  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  but  most  debauched  women  of  the 
age.  With  manners  naturally  easy,  with  passions  naturally 
warm,  and  with  principles  light,  unsettled  and  unfixed,  she  unites 
something  pleasing,  something  seemingly  unaffected,  unstu- 
died, simple,  innocent, and  an  unpremeditated  ingenuousness.  She 
has  a  tear  or  a  blush  always  at  her  command,  though  her  tem- 
per is  even,  and  her  nerves  not  irritable.  She  embraces  her  hus- 
band with  the  same  seeming  candour  the  instant  after  she  has 
intrigued  with  her  lover,  or  left  the  arms  of  her  gallant,  as  if  she 
had  during  the  whole  time  been  dutifully  studying  how  to  pro- 
mote his  happiness,  or  how  to  perform  actions  the  most  merito- 
rious and  the  most  honourable. — That  Madame  Talleyrand  has 
no  pretensions  to  genius,  every  body  who  has  frequented  her  so- 
ciety knows,  and  she  avows  acutely,  and  with  naivete  herself,  that 
she  is  a  belle  bete.  But  a  long  habit,  perhaps  from  her  infancy, 
has  naturalized  to  her  an  art  to  impose,  a  cunning  to  deceive,  an 
hypocrisy  to  delude,  or  an  adroitness  to  dupe,  that  surpasses  or 
supplants  the  ability  and  experience  of  the  most  crafty,  of  the 
most  witty,  of  the  most  voluptuous  female  intriguer ;  of  the 
vainest,  most  libertine  female  coquette.  By  her  figure,  as  well 
as  by  her  constitution  and  temperament,  she  seems  formed  for 
love,  and  for  nothing  else.  She  understands,  to  great  perfection, 
how  to  do  the  honours  of  her  table  ;  but  when  inclined,  and  it  is 


MADAME  TALLEYRAND.  35 :> 

seldom  she  is  not,  she  is  said  to  surpass  every  body  else  in  doing 
the  honours  of  her  boudoirs.  She  has  shown  great  taste  in  de- 
corating- and  furnishing  her  apartments ;  but  undressed  and  un- 
ornamented  herself,  she  is  said  to  be  a  Venus  de  Medicis,  with  u 
form  as  perfect  as  her  mind  is  empty.  Talleyrand  is  said  to 
have  declared,  with  his  usual  modest  sincerity,  "  that  having  \vit- 
and  talents  enough  for  two,  he  had  married  a  woman,  who,  though 
almost  destitute  of  common  sense,  had  more  natural  concealed 
corporeal  perfection,  than  twenty  other  women  of  ordinary  beauty- 
taken  collectively.  He  declared  he  did  not  select  a  wife  to  be 
either  a  friend  or  companion,  or  a  counsellor,  but  merely  to  fulfil 
that  office  for  which  nature  had  formed  them — that  of  being 
good  bed-fellows  -T  and  thus  far  he  had  obtained  the  matrimonial 
prize."  He  added,  with  philosojihical  resignation,  that  "  he  cared 
lutle  if  she  cuckolded  him  behind  his  back,  provided  she  was,  in 
his  presence,  complaisant,  obedient,  insinuating,  pleasing,  good- 
Iiumoured,  and  caressing."  It  is  pretended  by  some,  that  Ma- 
dame Talleyrand's  first  marriage  was  the  consequence  of  inte- 
rest, not  of  inclination  -r  while  others  assert,  that  a  reciprocal  af- 
fection between  her  and  Mr.  Grand  had  long  preceded  an  union 
which  her  indiscretion,  imprudence,  and  infidelity,  forced  her  in- 
dignant husband  to  dissolve.  Madame  Grand  had  long  been  fa- 
mous in  the  annals  of  gallantry  in  Asia,  before  her  name  appear- 
ed in  the  scandalous  chronicle  of  Europe.  Mr.  F ,  then  a 

member  of  the  supreme  council  at  Bengal,  was  convicted  and 
fined  by  the  tribunal  of  Calcutta,  fifty  thousand  rupees,  for  cri- 
minal conversation  with  this  lady,  having  introduced  himself,  by 
the  aid  of  a  ladder,  into  her  bed- room,  where  Mr.  Grand  surpris- 
ed him, -while  a  friend  of  his  was  kindly  watching  in  the  garden. 

After  judgment  had  been  pronounced  against  Mr.  F ,  the 

good  nature  of  Sir  E.  I — ,  one  of  the  judges,  increased  the 
worth  of  Madame  Grand's  virtue  sixteen  per  cent,  by  ordering 
the  damages  to  be  paid  in  Sicca  rupees.  The  judge  and  Mr. 

F ,  are  said  to  have  been  invited  by  Talleyrand,  during  the 

peace  of  1802,  to  a  dinner,  where  Madame  Talleyrand  did  the 
honours  of  the  table,  and  her  ci-devant  husband,  Mr.  Grand,  was 
one  of  the  guests.  It  is  difficult  to  carry  connubial  toleratioB 
and  revolutionary  politeness  further. 

H  h2 


H4  MADAME  TALLEYRAND: 

But,  notwithstanding  the  cause  of  her  separation  from 
Grand,  the  style  of  living  she  maintained  at  Paris,  before  ht-v 
emigration  to  England,  evinced,  that,  culpable  as  she  was,  her 
late  husband  had  not  been  ungenerous.  Her  retinue  was  nume- 
rous and  splendid,  her  hotel  furnished  in  the  most  fashionable 
manner,  and  her  expenses  indicated  wealth,  if  not  extravagance. 
But  the  society  she  frequented,  and  the  depraved  gallants  by 
whom  she  was  surrounded,  caused  even  the  most  indulgent  to 
lament,  that  corruption  and  vice  should  stain  so  much  beauty,  de- 
base so  many  charms,  and  cloud  so  much  elegance.  Before  her 
arrival  in  London,  in  the  summer  of  1792,  Talleyrand  had  been 
in  her  company  at  Paris  ;  but  if  he  was  among  her  admirers  there, 
he  was  never  supposed  to  be  among  the  successful  ones  ;  and  in 
courting  her  in  London,  he  was  at  first  more  in  love  with  her 
fortune,  than  with  her  person  ;  or  rather,  by  enjoying  the  one, 
he  hoped  to  get  possession  of  the  other.  Could  he  only  gratify 
his  passion  for  riches  and  lust,  for  gluttony  and  debauchery,  it 
was  the  same  to  him,  whether  saluted  as  the  prime  minister 
of  Napoleone,or  despised  as  the  pander  of  a  brothel.  In  August, 
1792,  Madame  Grand  made  her  escape  from  France,  after  see- 
ing her  porter  murdered  under  her  windows.  She  arrived  at  Do- 
ver with  scarcely  any  thing  but  the  clothes  upon  her  back.  Here 
she  had  the  good  fortune  to  interest  two  young  Englishmen  in 
her  favour,  who,  though  England  was  then  at  peace  with  France, 
had  to  encounter  great  difficulties  and  dangers  in  getting  to  Paris, 
•where  they  claimed  for  her  the  privileges  of  a  British  subject, 
and  at  last  succeeded  in  bringing  off  (with  the  utmost  secresy, 
for  death  would  have  followed  detection)  the  wreck  of  her 
fortune,  in  jewels,  gold,  plate,  bank  stock,  and  ready  money,  to 
the  amount  of  more  than  25,000/.  Stg.  For  this  service,  they, 
though  poor,  nobly  refused  any  compensation.  Mr.  Grand,  hear- 
ing of  her  flight,  and  supposing  her  poor,  sent  her  an  unlimited  let- 
ter of  credit  from  Switzerland,  where  he  was.  After  passing  four 
years  in  England,  Madame  Grand  returned  to  Paris  under  a  ficti- 
tious name,  inserted  in  a  neutral  pass  given  her  by  a  friend,  a  neutral 
ambassador  at  St.  James's  ;  and  she  continued  to  reskle  in~ 
fbgnita,  with  Talleyrand,  until  the  spring  of  1797.  He  then 
presented  a  petition  to  the  Directory,  in  the  name  of  Madame 
Grand.,  in  which  she  proved  herself  to  have  been  bora  a  Danish 


MADAME  TALLEYRAND. 

subject.  This  petition  obtained  the  approbation  of  Cochon,  then 
minister  of  police,  and,  of  course,  she  could  show  herself  at  Pa- 
ris, without  danger  ;  but  from  prudence,  she  remained  under 
the  protection  of  Chevalier  Dreyer,  the  Danish  envoy.  Whe- 
ther Talleyrand  reposes  much  reliance  on  the  fidelity  of  his 
wife  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  anecdote.  His  valet, 
who  was  also  his  pimp,  introduced  to  his  acquaintance,  during 
his  stay  in  Germany,  the  young  daughter  of  a  protestant  clergy- 
man, whom  he  soon  debauched,  and  carried  away  with  him  in 
the  disguise,  first,  of  a  jockey,  and  afterwards,  as  she  grew  taller, 
in  that  of  a  firivate  secretary.  When  Madame  Grand  came 
back  to  Paris,  he  made  this  girl  assume  the  dress  of  her  sex,  and 
recommended  her  to  his  mistress  as  a  chambermaid,  or  rather  as 
a  governess,  because  she  has  been  obliged  to  submit  to  the  rude- 
ness as  well  as  to  the  awkwardness  of  this  Abigail,  who  watches 
her  words,  reports  her  actions,  inspects  her  correspondence, 
and  embroils  her  with  her  lover,  or  pacifies  him,  just  as  hu- 
mour, anger,  malice,  or  caprice  dictates.  This  woman  Talley- 
rand now  calls  the  prefect  of  the  female  department  in  his  house, 
and  Madame  Talleyrand  is  even  to  this  time  more  afraid  of  pro- 
voking her,  than  of  offending  her  husband.  Though  Madame 
Talleyrand  cannot  boast  of  brilliancy  of  genius,  she  certainly  is 
not  deficient  in  that  social  capacity,  that  species  of  sense,  and 
those  light  accomplishments  which  good  breeding  and  good  com- 
pany always  confer.  She  commits  more  blunders  than  errors. 
She  often  excites  a  laugh,  but  never  contempt  ;  but  what  is  the. 
most  curious,  Talleyrand  is  the  first  to  entertain  his  guests  at  the 
expense  of  his  wife.  As  a  proof  of  her  simplicity,  he  often  re- 
lates, that  when,  in  the  autumn  of  1797,  the  Directory  negotia- 
ted a  loan,  and  Buonaparte  gave  England  for  its  acquittal,  Ma- 
dame Grand  wrote  to  him,  expressing  her  uneasiness  on  account 
of  her  jewels,  plate,  &c.  deposited  in  the  bank  of  England,  and 
begged  him  to  inform  Buonaparte  of  it.  To  this  Talleyrand  re- 
plied, that  having  always  her  interest  at  heart  more  than  his 
own,  he  had  obtained  from  the  Directory  a  decree,  which  ex- 
empted her  property  in  England,  from  being  included  in  Buona- 
parte's patriotic  pledge,  and  that  therefore  she  might  rely  on  its 
safety."  By  his  advice  she  was  induced  to  communicate  her  de- 
mand and  his  answer,  to  several  persons,  to  the  great  amusement 


556  MADAME  TALLEYRAND 

of  the  wags  and  fashionable  circles.  Before  his  marriage,  Ta*- 
leyrand  never  neglected,  on  the  ninth  clay  of  every  decade,  to 
visit  Madame  Grand,  at  Montmorency,  where  he  remained  un- 
til the  first  day  of  the  next  decade.  As  he  was  never  fond  of  soli- 
tude, persons  who  were  agreeable,  those  he  could  dupe,  or 
those  he  expected  to  amuse  him,  were  informed,  a  week  before, 
by  the  hostess,  that  their  presence  would  be  acceptable.  The 
choicest  dishes  were  served,  the  finest  wines  were  drank,  and 
there  was  a  variety  of  amusements.  Plays  and  farces  were  re- 
presented by  comedians  from  the  capital,  or  by  amateurs  of 
the  company,  who  were  chiefly  good  musicians,  or  at  least  able 
to  form  a  very  respectable  concert.  A  bank  of  Rouge  ct  J\roh\ 
another  of  Pharo,  and  a  third  of  La  Roulette,  or  Biribi,  lightened 
the  pockets  of  those  who  found  no  pleasure  in  more  rational  or 
less  expensive  amusements.  More  innocent  games,  for  pledges 
or  fines,  often  intervened,  and  the  grave  ex-bishop,  and  the  craf- 
ty minister,  sometimes  jumped  about  at  Madame  Grand's  favour- 
ite play  of  blindman's-bmT,  and  frequently  set  the  party  in  a  roai> 
by  his  tricks  as  much  as  by  his  clumsiness.  He  was  still  witty 
and  cunning  even  when  blindfolded.  Any  person  who  had  not 
the  jwlitcncss  to  lose  from  twenty  to  fifty  louis-d'ors  was  sel- 
dom invited  a  second  time.  The  bankers  of  these  gaming-tables 
•were  ruined  emigrants  ;  they  paid  for  the  privilege  of  keeping 
them,  in  1800,  at  the  rate  of  twelve  hundred  louis-d'ors  (1200/.) 
per  month,  and  gained  often  double  that  sum.  Talleyrand  boast- 
ed to  every  body  of  this  act  of  generosity.  One  of  these  emi- 
grants was  a  relation  of  his,  who  had  been  plundered  by  the  re- 
volution of  a  large  fortune.  It  is  stated  that  Talleyvand  now 
allows  his  wifc  for  her  yearly  expenses  the  sum  of  six  hun- 
dred thousand  livres,  (25,000/.  Stg.)  besides  double  that  a- 
mount  for  his  establishment  in  town,  and  four  hundred  thousand 
livres  (16,000/.  Stg.)  a  year  for  his  establishment  in  the  country. 
But  she  at  present  imitates  the  conduct  of  her  husband  ;  the  mo- 
ney she  does  not  lose  in  gambling  she  hoards  up,  and  those  per- 
sons wh-o  provide  for  her  house  and  table,  for  her  dress,  and  for 
her  extravagance,  are  left  to  shift  for  themselves  ;  but  should 
they  become  too  troublesome,  their  complaints  are  forgotten,  or 
buried  in  the  Temple,  or  some  other  gloomy  Bastile,  or  removed 
to  Cayenne. 


FRENCH  PRISONS.  357 

THE    FRENCH    PRISONS. 

EVERY  one  knows  the  horrid  state  of  the  French  prisons 
under  the  reign  of  Robespierre.     They  are  little  better  under 
that  of  Napoleone.     It  was  in  these  last  that  a   Pichegru,  and 
many  other  excellent  men  were  basely  and  secretly  assassinated. 
It  was  in  them  that  Captain  Wright  of  the  English  navy,  who, 
being  on  a  tour  in  France  during  the   last  peace  with  England, 
and  not  being  able  to  get  away  before  the  declaration  of  war, 
was  confined,  and  where,  after  being  several   successive  days 
stretched  upon  the  rack,  and  made  to  suffer  all  the  tortures  that 
the  most  diabolically  ingenious  cruelty  could  invent,  in  order  to 
extort  from   him  secrets  relative  to  the  English   government, 
which  he  neither  could  nor  would  reveal,  he  was  so  shockingly 
mangled,  that  it  was  found  convenient  to  say  that  he  had  either 
died  a  natural  death,  or  committed  suicide.     As  Buonaparte's 
state  prison,  the  Temple,  is  justly  considered  as  the  most  cruel 
and  execrable  gaol  that  ever  despotism  organized  to  torment  its 
victims,  a  description  of  its  economy  and  horrors  cannot  but  be 
interesting,  as  a  historical  monument,  and  useful  as  a  warning 
to  travellers  who  may  be  tempted,  or  under  the  necessity,  to  visit 
regenerated  France.   It  is  translated  from  "  La  Police  de  Pouch e 
de-uoilee"  a  work  published  on  the  Continent,  and  though  its  au- 
thor, through  fear,  has  not  dared  to  affix  his  name,  its  contents 
have  never  been  contradicted.     "  I  arrived  in   Paris,"  says  the 
author,  "  with  the  intent  of  visiting  her  museums,  her  libraries, 
and  her  literary  and  scientific  institutions ;  but  not  with  the  least 
idea  of  intermeddling  with  her  political  plots,  intrigues,  or  policy. 
Being  well  known  in  Switzerland,  my  own  country,  and  very  well 
recommended  to  persons   of  high   respectability  in    France  ; 
discreet  both  from  prudence  and  inclination,  passing  my  fore- 
noons with  artists  and  literary  characters,  and  my  evenings  with 
my  friends,  or  at  the  opera,  or  the  play,  I  apprehended  nothing. 
Avoiding  all  kinds  of  conversation  about  the  government,  I  was 
as  tranquil  and  unsuspicious  at  Paris  as  if  I  had  been  in  my  na- 
tive city  of  Berne,  before  the  revolutionary  banditti  had  completed 
its  destruction. 

At  the  house  of  one  of  my  acquaintances,  I  dined  several 
times  with  the  police  minister  Fouche,  and  the  prefect  of  the 
police,  Dubois.  The  wife  of  the  former  had  invited  me  to  seve* 


158  FRENCH  PRISONS. 


ral  of  her  routs  antl  parties  ;  an  honour  which  I  sometimes 
accepted.  To  tell  the  truth,  however,  I  was  not  much  at  my 
ease  in  the  house  of  a  known  thief  and  assassin,  though  made 
a  minister,  and  styled  his  excellency  ;  nor  by  the  side  of  his  wife, 
a  ci-devant  harlot,  accused  of  incest  and  infanticide,  and  who,  du- 
ring 1793  and  1794,  and  when  her  husband  murdered  and  plun- 
dered, performed  the  parts  of  a  goddess  of  reason,  or  a  fury  of 
the  guillotine  ;  who  had  her  sister  guillotined,  and  danced 
round  the  guillotine  still  reeking  with  her  blood.  But  my  senti- 
ments and  feelings  were  always  the  secrets  of  my  own  bosom. 
I  had  been  just  three  months  at  Paris  when  Madame  Fouche 
one  day  invited  me,  with  some  of  my  friends,  to  a  supper.  It 
was  near  two  o'clock  of  a  cold  morning  of  February,  that  I  re- 
turned to  my  lodgings.  I  had  not  been  in  bed  an  hour  when  I 
was  alarmed  by  five  men  at  the  side  cf  my  bed,  who  bade  me 
rise  instantly.  Two  held  lights  and  the  other  three  pointed  pis- 
tols at  me-  Thinking  it  some  mistake,  I  informed  them  who  I 
was,  but  was  told  by  one  of  them  that  I  was  arrested  by  order  of 
the  minister  of  police.  I  was  immediately  transported  to  the 
Temple,  where,  after  numberless  delays  which  increased  the  tor- 
tures of  anxious  suspense,  and  undergoing  an  infinity  of  interro- 
gatories about  every  thing  which  related  to  me,  and  every  parti- 
cular of  my  person  noted  clown,  for  which  purpose  I  was  obliged 
to  strip  to  the  skin,  I  was  marched  by  the  dim  light  of  solitary 
lamps  through  several  subterraneous  passages  and  filthy  vaults,  in 
which,  however,  were  visible,  chains,  fetters  and  coffins.  I  was 
at  last  brought  into  a  room  where  sat  Fouche's  private  secreta- 
ry, Desmarets,  who  supped  by  my  side  a  few  hours  before  at 
the  police  minister's  ;  and  another  with  whom  I  was  unacquaint- 
ed. After  a  long,  tedious,  and  artful  examination  which  lasted 
till  day -light,  in  which  every  artifice  was  made  use  of  to  extort  a 
confession  of  what  was  not  true,  I  was  conducted  from  the  apart- 
ment. I  descended  first  twenty  steps,  and.  shortly  after,  forty  more. 
The  farther  I  descended,  the  darker  it  became,  and  when  we 
stopped  it  was  in  complete  darkness.  The  gaoler  then  drew  back 
two  iron  bolts,  and  two  iron  doors  opened  with  a  terrible  noise, 
when  I  was  pushed,  without  a  word  being  said,  into  a  dark  hole, 
the  doors  of  which  he  locked  and  bolted  upon  me,  and  where  I 
instantly  fainted  away,  from  the  intolerable  stench  which  nearly 


FRENCH  PRISONS.  359 

suffocated  ttie.  When  at  last  I  recovered  my  senses,  I  felt  myself 
supported  by  somebody,  who  said  in  a  mournful  fainting  voice, 
"  Unfortunate  wjje^ch,  whoever  you  are,  whether  innocent  or 
guilty,  resign  yourself  to  your  fate.  Hope  for  nothing.  Few 
that  enter  this  dungeon  leave  it  but  for  death.  I  expect  every 
moment  to  be  my  last.  Confide  yourself  to  me — what  have 
you  done,  and  of  what  are  you  accused  ?"  "  I  have  done  no- 
thing,  and  know  not  of  what  I  am  accused.'*  He  made  a  great 
many  attempts  to  gain  my  confidence,  but  they  all  terminated  in 
the  same  manner.  From  him  I  learned  that  this  dungeon  was 
railed  the  Purgatory,  and  its  insupportable  stench  arose  from  its 
being  placed  over  the  common  sewer,  with  which,  by  order  of 
the  police,  a  small  communication  had  been  made  in  hopes  of 
forcing  prisoners  to  confess,  or  to  make  the  last  moments  of  those 
condemned,  so  much  the  more  miserable.  This  hole  was  hard- 
ly large  enough  for  two  people  to  lie  clown  in,  and  to  stand  up- 
right in  it  was  impossible.  Some  rotten  dirty  straw  covered  a 
damp  stone  floor,  and  water  was  continually  falling  from  the  ceiling 
and  the  walls.  It  was  overrun  with  rats  and  vermin.  It  was  a 
dungeon  too  horrid  even  for  the  murderer  of  his  brother  or  his 
father.  I  was  told  of  sixteen  prisoners  who,  within  the  year 
past,  had  from  despair  dashed  out  their  brains  against  the  walls, 
and  four  who,  from  the  bite  of  rats,  had  bled  to  death.  From  this 
last  cause  I  had  nearly  died  myself,  and  therefore,  when  ex- 
hausted nature  would  hold  out  no  longer,  I  slumbered  in  terror, 
After  some  time,  the  gaoler  brought  me  a  scanty  pittance  of 
water  and  black  bread,  and  removed  my  fellow-prisoner,  when  I 
could  plainly  perceive  the  floor  was  wet  still  more  with  blood  and 
gore,  than  with  dirt  and  damps.  "  Adieu,"  said  my  companion, 
"  my  pains  will  cease  in  a  few  moments.  Can  I  regret  life  ?  Is 
not  death  preferable  to  this  confinement?"  I  felt  his  tears  trickle 
down  my  hand  as  he  uttered  these  words.  I  then  felt  that  if  I 
had  had  a  pistol  or  a  dagger  I  should  have  ended  my  existence. 
This  man,  however,  who  inspired  me  with  sa  much  interest,  I 
afterwards  discovered  to  be  one  of  the  moutons  or  prison- spies, 
(of  whom  there  are  many  in  every  French  prison)  and  who  had 
been  confined  with  me,  by  the  police,  in  order  to  gain  my  con- 
fidence, and  then  betray  it.  To  me  he  pretended  he  was  an  emi- 
grant, and  condemned  to  die,  After  a  confinement  in  this  hor- 


.360  FRENCH  PRISONS. 

rid  grave  for  some  time  longer,  I  was  at  length  brought  before  a 
military  commission,  and  was  charged  with  being  an  English 
agent,  an  emissary  engaging  French  troops  to  desert,  and  with 
having  been  in  the  regiment  of  Ernest,  in  the  French  service, 
and  at  present  a  lieutenant  in  Meuron's  regiment,  now  in  the  pay 
of  England,  on  the  East-India  station.  To  my  surprise  and  ter- 
For,  two  French  gens-d'armes  positively  swore,  that  they  had 
seen  meat  Marseilles,  in  1790,  an  ensign  in  Ernest's  regiment  ; 
but  two  Swiss  soldiers  of  Meuron's  regiment,  who  had  been 
taken  by  a  French  privateer  in  the  East-Indies,  declared,  upon 
oath,  in  spite  of  the  threats  of  the  president  and  of  the  public  ac- 
cuser, that  I  was  not  the  same  lieutenant  de  V who  served 

in  that  regiment.  After  a  trial  of  five  hours,  I  was  remanded  to 
my  dungeon.  My  request  for  leave  to  bring  witnesses  from  my 
own  country  to  prove  my  innocence,  was  refused,  as  contrary  to 
the  laws  for  the  expeditious  justice  of  military  commissions  and 
special  tribunals  ! — The  military  judges  of  the  Temple,  to  pro- 
long and  embitter  agony,  never  make  a  prisoner  acquainted  with 
their  decision  before  he  is  to  be  released  or  executed.  The  suf- 
ferings arising  from  this  uncertainty,  are  so  much  the  more 
poignant,  as  it  has  frequently  happened  that  persons,  three  or 
four  month?  after  their  trial,  when  they  had  every  reason  to  think 
themselves  acquitted,  have  been  called  out  to  be  shot. 

In  a  week  afterwards,  I  was  taken  into  a  better  apartment.  It 
was  time,  if  my  tormentors  wished  me  to  live.  From  want  of 
proper  nourishment,  of  cleanliness,  and  of  rest,  which  vermin  and 
rats  every  minute  interrupted,  I  was  so  exhausted  I  could  not 
walk  alone.  In  going  through  a  narrow  vault,  in  the  way  to 
my  new  prison,  the  gaoler,  who  was  a  stranger  to  me,  and  a 
man  of  a  milder  countenance  than  the  other,  whispered  to  me, 
"  I  am  your  countryman,  and  pity  you  ;  you  have  fallen  into  the 
grasp  of  cruel  tygers.  Look  here,  on  this  rack,  this  morning, 
expired  one  of  our  countrymen.  There  is  a  part  of  his  skull, 
mixed  with  his  hair ;  there  are  some  of  his  nails  torn  out,  and 
there  lies  one  of  his  eyes !"  After  another  fortnight  had  elapsed,  I 
was  permitted  to  dine  in  the  ordinary  with  forty-five  other  pri- 
soners, who,  like  myself,  had  been  tried,  and  under  a  sentence  of 
which  they  were  ignorant.  At  my  second  dinner,  I  witnessed 


FRENCH  PRISONS.  361 

the  following  scene,  which  made  me  almost  repent  of  having  got 
out  of  my  dungeon.     We  had  just  finished  our  soup,  when  I  ob- 
served all  my  companions  turn  pale  at  the  noise  of  the  march  of 
some  military  on  the  staircase,  who  soon  entered  the  room, 
headed  by  a  police  agent.     He  called  out  loudly  "  John  Francis 
de  S— ,  you  are  immediately  to  undergo  the  sentence  of  death, 
passed  on   you  by  the  military  commission — Follow  us  1"— De 
S — ,  without  changing  countenance,  clasped  his  thunder-struck 
mother,  and  fainting  sister,  in  his  arms,  bidding  them  an  eternal 
adieu  !  and  cried  out  to  us — il  Comrades  !  I  recommend  them  to 
your  kind  care.     God  bless  you  all  1 — believe  me,  /  am  not  the 
most  to  be  pitied  1" — He  was  immediately  taken  away,  and  when 
Mademoiselle  de  S—  recovered  herself  from   her  swoon,  and 
missed  her  brother,  her  cries  pierced  our  hearts  ;  she  refused  all 
food  and  consolation,  and  in  six  days  expired,  imploring  the  ven- 
geance of  Heaven  on  the  assassins  of  her  brother.     Madame  de 
S — ,  more   fortunate,   never  spoke  again  ;  she  was  carried  a 
corpse  from  the  table ;   and  when  the  body  was  opened,  it  was 
found  that  her  heart  had  literally  burst.     Such,  or  nearly  such, 
dreadful  occurrences  happened  very  often  at  our  dinners  in  the 
Temple.     No  person  wras  safe,  and  hardly  any  person  was  cer- 
tain of  his  existence  fora  moment.     I  saw,  during  fifteen  weeks, 
twenty-one  prisoners  carried  to  execution,  from  the  table,  by  my 
side  ;  and  all  went  to  die  with  the  same  indifference  they  had  sat 
down  to  dine  ;  and  as  young  de  S —  (who  was  executed  under 
the  age  of  twenty,  for  having  been  page  to  Louis  XVI.)  observ- 
ed,  the  survivors    were   certainly  the  most   miserable.     Five 
months  had  elapsed  since  my  imprisonment,  when  a  countryman 
of  mine,  of  immoral  character,  and  an  underling  ofFouche,  vi- 
sited   me.     From  him  I  discovered  that  the  police  were  well 
convinced  of  my  innocence,  but  that  as  I  possessed  some  talents, 
which  might  be  used  to  expose  the  injustice  and  persecution  I 
had  suffered,  I  should  either  languish  years  in  jail,  or  be  trans- 
ported, upon  my  own  pretended  application,  to  the  desarts  of 
Cayenne,  unless  I  chose  to  buy  my  liberty.     To  this  last  expe- 
dient I  consented,  and  under  cover  of  other  than  the  real  consi- 
deration, I  paid,  through  the  medium  of  the  Swiss  banker  R — , 
my  countryman  and  friend,  a  thousand  Louis  d'ors  (1000/.)  for 
my  release,    J  was  in  consequence,  under  the  escort  of  twe 

\  i 


362  '  FRENCH  PRISONS, 

gens-d'armes,  immediately  conducted  to  the  frontiers  of  Swit- 
zerland. Thus  ended  my  visit  to  Buonaparte's  Bastille,  where,.  I 
am  well  assured,  I  must  have  perished,  had  not  the  avarice  of 
Madame  Buonaparte  and  of  Madame  Fouche  got  the  better  of 
the  ferocity  of  their  husbands.  With  the  exception  of  fifty 
Louis,  the  sum  I  paid  was  divided  between  these  ladies.  I  am  per- 
suaded my  imprisonment  was  merely  an  excuse  to  pillage  me. 
I  learned,  from  the  most  respectable  authority,  that  every  month 
since  the  reign  of  Buonaparte,  upon  an  average,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  state  prisoners  are  taken  up  and  imprisoned.  Of  these, 
in  the  Temple,  ten  generally  die  in  the  course  of  a  month  by 
sudden  death,  suspected  to  be  poisoned ;  twelve  by  suicide,  caus- 
ed by  despair  ;  ten  by  tortures  on  the  rack  ;  and  an  equal  num- 
ber disappear,  without  any  one  exactly  knowing  what  becomes 
of  them  ;  thirty  are  usually  transported  to  Cayenne,  Sec. ;  fifteen 
shot ;  and  the  remainder  detained  until  further  orders,  or  till  they 
purchase  their  liberty.  Of  these  prisoners,  one-eighth  part  are 
-calculated  to  be  females.  Under  the  hall  of  the  secret  police-of- 
fice, are  dug  several  large  wells,  called  Lea  Oubliettes,  (the  cells 
of  oblivion).  These  are  said  to  be  several  hundred  fathoms 
deep.  Any  person  condemned  to  be  secretly  removed,  h  order- 
ed into  the  hall,,  and  placed  over  a  trap-door,  which,  by  touching 
a  spring,  opens,  and  instantly  precipitates  the  victim  into  eterni- 
ty. If,  by  tlie  merest  chance,,  the  miserable  wretch  should  not 
be  immediately  destroyed  by  the  fall,  he  is  doomed  to  languish 
out  the  sad  remnant  of  his  days  in  the  most  excruciating  tor- 
ments of  agony,  of  hunger,  and  of  thirst.  The  prisoners  known 
to  have  suddenly  disappeared,  ave  all  supposed  to  have  been 
swallowed  up,  and  ta  have  perished  by  this  atrocious  invention. 
There  is  also  in  the  office  of  the  secret  police,  a  hall,  called  the 
Chamber  of  Hell.  When  a  person  is  arrested  by  the  spies  of  the 
police,  he  is,  accompanied  by  the  gcns-d'armes  d' Elite,  carried  to 
the  office  of  the  secret  police,  which  is  always  sitting,  both  night 
and  day.  If  any  other  prisoner  should  then  chance  to.  be  under 
examination,  or  if  it  is  intended  to  inspire  terror,  the  person  ar- 
rested generally  continues,  shut  up  and  chained,  in  the  chamber  ' 
of  hell,  for  two,  and  sometimes  for  four  days.  This  room  is  a 
large  hall  under  ground,  where  no  light  penetrates,  paved  with 
stones,  and  in  the  walls  are  large  iron  rings,  to  which  the  chains 


FRENCH  PRISONS.  363 

of  the  prisoner,  with  which  his  hands  and  feet  are  bound,  arc 
fastened  and  locked  with  a  padlock.  He  can  move  but  a  very 
short  distance  from  the  ring.  This  dark  gloomy  hall  is  large 
enough  to  contain  one  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners  at  the  same 
time.  Light  is  admitted  into  this  abode  of  misery  only  when 
the  jailers  bring  a  new  victim  to  be  chained.  Nothing  but  sighs 
and  lamentations  are  to  be  heard — no  consolation  is  given,  none 
is  expected,  or  will  be  received,  as,  every  where,  the  nearest  per- 
son to  an  innocent  sufferer  may  be  a  mouton,  or  prison- spy,  sent 
to  obtain  and  betray  confidence.  Half  a  pound  of  black  bread, 
and  two  pints  of  water,  are  allowed  each  prisoner  for  every 
twenty-four  hours.  When  carried  to  his  first  interrogatory,  he 
does  not  leave  the  chamber  of  hell  by  the  same  way  he  entered  it, 
but  passes  through  several  other  large  subterraneous  rooms, 
well  lighted,  where  he  is  almost  suffocated  by  the  most  horrid 
and  filthy  smells,  where  the  walls  and  floors  are  stained  with 
gore,  and  where  blood-stained  rags  and  garments,  coffins,  racks, 
and  instruments  of  torture  strike  the  eye.  Arrived  before  the 
tribunal  of  the  secret  police,  where  frequently  the  infamous  Real, 
or  the  ferocious  Fouche  presides,  or  sometimes  both  together,  he 
is  told  that  his  pretended  crimes  have  long  been  known,  himself 
long  watched,  of  course  all  evasion  and  denial  will  only  expose 
him  to  the  rack  and  certain  death,  and  that  his  only  hope  rests 
on  a  candid  confession,  which  may,  perhaps,  obtain  him  mercy. 
If  he  persists  in  his  innocence,  he  is  then  conducted  back  to  the 
chamber  of  hell,  and  the  turnkeys  show  him  in  the  way  the  va- 
rious instruments  of  torture,  explain  their  use,  the  sufferings 
they  produce,  and  insinuate  that  few  men  have  strength  enough 
to  survive  their  torments.  After  being  two  days  longer  upon 
bread  and  water,  in  the  chamber  of  hell,  he  is  interrogated  a  se- 
cond time,  from  the  idea  that  want  of  nourishment  has  weaken- 
ed the  strength  of  his  mind  as  well  as  of  his  body.  If  he  is  not 
suspected  of  being  one  of  the  chiefs,  or  confidant  of  one  of  the 
chief  pretended  conspirators,  he  is  sent  to  the  Temple,  or  some 
other  prison,  after  being  forced  to  sign  made-up,  fabricated  exa- 
minations. If  he  refuses  to  do  this,  forty-eight  hours  more  in 
'the  chamber  of  hell  teach  him  to  be  less  obstinate.  If  he  has 
been  arrested  by  mistake,  or  there  is  no  evidence  against  him,  he 
continues  in  prison  as  long  as  it  pleases  the  police  ;  that  is  to 


364  FRENCH  PRISONS. 

say,  almost  always  until  he,  if  able,  or  his  friends  or  rela 
tions,  if  he  is  not,  make  pecuniary  sacrifices  for  his  liberation. 
If  those  arrested  are  related  to  suspected  individuals,  or  suppos- 
ed toliave  considerable  talents,  or  a  hatred  to  the  C^rsican  fami 
ly,  a  dose  of  poison  usually  removes  them  from  the  prison  to  the- 
grave.  Of  eight  thousand,  three  hundred  persons  imprisoned 
in  the  spring  of  1804,  not  a  fourth  part  have  ever  again  appeared 
in  the  world  ;  and  though  the  police  agents  give  out,  that  they 
hav'e  demanded  a  voluntary  banishment  to  the  colonies,  the  bu- 
rial places  at  Paris  are  known  to  be  inhabited  by  most  of  them. 
While  George,  Pichegru,  and  Moreau,  were  interrogated  at  the 
secret  police-office,  Buonaparte  was  with  Murat,  and  his  favour- 
ite aide-de-camp,  Duroc,  in  an  adjoining  closet,  where  he  could 
hear  every  thing  that  passed.  Enraged  with  Pichegru,  who  de- 
nied every  thing,  and  refused  to  sign  the  interrogatories,  Buona- 
parte ordered  the  instantaneous  and  atrocious  murder  of  that 
brave  and  noble-minded  General.  He  expired  on  the  rack.  One 
of  the  geiis-d'armes  d?  Elite,  of  the  name  of  Jean  Pierreaux,  one  of 
his  executioners,  is  now  raving  mad,  and  shut  up  at  Charenton, 
where  he  is  incessantly  exclaiming — "I  have  murdered  Piche- 
gru, the  honestest  man  in  France  !"  Before  he  was  sent  to 
Charenton,  seized  with  remorse,  he  openly  proclaimed  this  both 
on  thePont-neuf  and  in  the  Palais-Royal.  Foreigners  may,  per- 
haps, think  that  Frenchmen,  and  French  subjects  alone,  are  lia- 
ble to  these  horrors.  That  idea  is  totally  erroneous.  People  of 
all  countries,  subjects  of  all  states,  'are  equally  exposed.  Even 
some  Algerine  merchants,  who  had  claims  for  corn  sold  to  the 
French  armies  in  Italy,  were  imprisoned  in  the  Temple, 
thought  themselves  fortunate  in  signing  a  discharge  of  the  debts 
due  them,  to  obtain  their  release.  Buonaparte,  Talleyrand,  and 
Foudie,  and  others,  have  often  paid,  in  the  same  coin,  the! 
reditors,  as  well*s  the  creditors  of  the  state. 


THE    END- 


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JUN    2   1944 

Ots.   nftfir* 

5  2006 

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rec'd  circ.  MAR  2  8  1 

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gUL  1  5  2005 

LD  21-10m-5,'43(6061s) 

M20000 


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